Ropoco 1 Contest, 2005.

Almost everybody remarked that there was a lack of activity yet, surprisingly, the leading station made only seven fewer QSOs than did the 2004 leader. Entries are down by nearly 25%, however. A goodly number of the missing ‘regulars’ do actually appear in the logs but they were apparently active for only a short while, working just the stronger stations, and did not submit entries.

Conditions were generally reported as difficult with rapid, deep QSB and this may have been a major influence on participation. Things were particularly difficult in GM, where propagation effectively died well before the end of the event. Further evidence of poor propagation, especially given the decreased level of activity and hence QRM, is the fact that only four entrants submitted error-free logs.

Congratulations then to Fraser Robertson G4BJM, Lee Volante G0MTN and John Muzyka G4RCG, who receive certificates for 1st, 2nd and 3rd places respectively.

The G3XTJ Memorial Trophy is awarded to Dennis Booty, G3KKQ, whose error-free log was placed fourth overall.

The G5MY Trophy, for the highest aggregate score from both 2005 events goes to Fraser Robertson G4BJM, in recognition of his combined score of 1230 points.

Steve Knowles, G3UFY

Soapbox:

G4BJM Always fun! Activity a bit low, a few regulars missing. Condx quite good - worked all I heard, no got-aways.

G4RCG Condx were very good on a quiet band. Just not enough people on. Still think this test would be better on an afternoon instead of a morning. As usual this is a great contest.

G0MTN With EUHF Championship finishing at 1am local I was too tired trying to operate this. I actually forgot my own postcode at the start. My CW receiving was truly awful - too many mistakes and repeats - sorry folks! I also found a big lack of activity this time.

G3KKQ Conditions could have been better. High noise at times. It always amazes me how quickly postcodes become corrupted. Good fun, all said and done!

G4EBK Not the best conditions - rapid and deep QSB.

G3RSD An absolutely colossal signal from G4BJM. What was he using?

GM3JKS Few early starters and propagation dropped out as more cam on. Couple of codes corrupted by the use of shortened numbers. Seemed to be fewer contesters hence a poorer score - worse than my usual from GM.

GM3WUX Where was everybody? Activity down on the previous event. We should run this an hour earlier to make better use of conditions, that's an important issue from up here!

G3LIK Very slow going with deep QSB on the distant stations.

M0AJT Once again a nice contest, but not enough contestants.

G3JJG Activity much lower than RoPoCo1.

G4OGB Many well-known calls missing this time - can they all be on holiday together? It must be many years since I worked so few.

G3LHJ Hard going - not so much activity this time.