Club Calls continues to be a popular event in the contest calendar. While participating station numbers were up, submitted logs were down. There was a slight increase in the number of Club Stations on the air, though (strangely) some with high QSO totals did not submit a log

It has to be said that some stations wasted all their efforts by not giving their logs the required attention. One entry lost almost half of their QSOs - many due to very careless errors.

Just as last year, members of one particular club do not seem to know their club name! Since this is the second year in a row for this offence, it is time to "name and shame" the Reading & DARC! Come on chaps! Consequently, any exchanged club name with "Reading" in it was accepted.

I must make mention of Peter, G3LET who, once again submitted a flawless log. Don't forget that Peter uses paper logging and types it up later. Thanks Peter. Had all the logs been like his, these results would have been published some time ago

Again, flexibility was given with regard to variations in the recording of the club name. However, a “Society” logged as a “Club” was penalised as were careless spelling errors. A “Club” recorded as a “Member” (or Vice Versa) also resulted in the loss of points.

The overall winner of the Aerial Trophy for leading club station, and indeed the overall winner was the Hadley Wood Contest Group.

The Leading Member station was Robin, G3TKF. Peter, G3LET and Tim, G4ARI were a close joint second with (spookily) an identical QSO breakdown.

This year, the David Hill G4IQM Memorial Trophy goes to Horsham ARC.

It is always nice to hear new operators being given the chance on the microphone for this event, but can I suggest that some of the more experienced chaps do the logging next time!.

Merry Christmas!

Rob Thomson G4LMW

# Certificate winner

Checklogs gratefully received from GW3SQX and GX8LED

No other clubs had 5 member entries

SOAPBOX:

2E0MDO/P
First time operating in this contest. Good fun. Aerial erected specially for the contest.

F8VON
First time and great fun - looking forward to the next one!

G0OLE
Did not start early enough to find a clear frequency this year to call seemed to be plenty of entrants noise level picked up towards the end of the contest with the rain showers

G0PEB
Good Fun on 160m

G0RAF
lovely, lovely contest. Thank you to all stations.

G1OCL
First time operating in this contest. Good fun. My rather poor set up using an aerial with strapped feeders operating from a flat and with low power made it a real struggle.

G2DX
Stayed on / around the 1990 khz contest band-edge to help f&drs members find me in melee.... Ps. My voice weakened significantly towards end of 'test' (croaking!) This sd 'post-logger' seems fine; but could not find any listed rsgb 'club-calls programs' on my laptop list

G2FJA
IC756 Pro III Antenna 60feet sloper from shack to tree-top fed against a random wire on or just above ground: L-match power 15dBW As they said at HFC 2008 - just do it and enjoy. A little better score than last year - right direction!!

G3LET
Very slow in the last hour and many signals weren't wonderful but picked up later. Some seemed to pull the plug early so it was easy to find a slot. Robot input support would greatly assist some of the occasional Club ops who take part in this event.

G3LRS
broken dipole feed middle of contest mended !

G3SAD/P
I wonder how many stations ran 32 watts??

G3SNU
Trio 830s doublet

G3SSO
ICOM IC756 PRO 3 Marconi Inv L.

G3TKF
Constant S9+ noise - so missed several stations that were calling!

G3UFY
FT1000MP + Marconi (TX) + 5ft dia tuned loop (RX)

G3VER
I G4HSO hereby verify that all operators are members of Verulam ARC (only G3YGA is not a member of RSGB directly - we are working on him!). FT1000 dipole @8m. A very enjoyable evening. A couple of distracting problems with audio connections meant we should have tested a bit earlier! Easy logging with N1MM this year.

G3ZBU/P
Conditions seemed a bit poor and activity was low but it gave a good opportunity to chat with many old friends rather than just pass the numbers! There seem to be people who wish to replace the passing of full club names with numbers: why not send 14 for all clubs so the exchange can be 59 14 QSL hi hi! Only joking! This is an excellent contest and please leave the format alone. In fact it is my favourite contest. I went portable for this ( first time) but had the laptop battery fail after 33 qsos. However the FT990 ran very nicely on a small 37A/hr lead-acid battery for the 3 hours. Excellent fun!

G4ADV
icom 746/160 dipole

G4ARI
This contest takes more time after the event to sort the log out

G4DJX
Limited time to operate and not my normal mode! However enjoyed 20 minutes of fun. Thank you.

G4FKA
Extra 120 feet of wire on the antenna made little difference. A challenge as always!

G4HRS/A
Running 30W to a 96ft end fed wire via home brew ATU.
Rig TS 430S.

G4OTJ
Never heard topband so busy!!

G4WAC
FT920 end-fed half-wave at 40ft. Very noisy!

G4ZCS
Elecraft k3 picatune end fed wire @ 5m.Late start!

G5FZ
Very enjoyable. We need to get more members on the air next year!

G6GVI
25W from IC735 into end-fed wire.
Also GX0BWC, GX1ONE, M0AWX, M0ICK/P active for BWC.

G6IPU/P
Enjoyed the contest dipole at 60 feet

G6WRC
Icom 756 pro 2 temp quarter wave antenna high winds lashing rain

G8MWA
IC7400 Antenna 60feet loop: home brew L-match power 15dBW late start due to non-working commercial ATU!

G8YMW/P
Kenwood TS 570 204ft Doublet

GS0ADX
Top band is very very noisy at the clubhouse shack so only the strongest stations could be heard. We have a power sub-station 50 feet from the operating position!

GX0BWC
Flexradio 5000 into inverted-l

GX0RGH
Good contest again. Love the format - please don't change it.

GX1ONE
FT857 into loaded vertical

GX3GWB
No propagation further north than Lancashire for us again this year

GX3KUE
VERY ENJOYABLE EVENING!

GX3RAL
TS570DGE dipole.

GX3WOR
For GX3WOR FT1000MP (output set to 32 Watts). Antenna = Dipole at 55ft

GX3ZME
Condx good to start with but deteriorated later

GX4STV
Station located in Hereford

GX4WSM
Ic756 doublet

GX5XV
We enjoyed this event, although we had a slow start and although we had a couple of QSOs on the band before 20:00 we were wondering if the antenna had fallen down. However within ten minutes or so things picked up and for the rest of the contest we were kept relatively busy. Although 75 contacts in 3 hours is not exactly "steaming"!

GX8LED
Total disaster! Managed to work our other club station just down the road but no-one else would come back to my CQs on either antenna. Not helped by high noise level from next door's plasma TV then had to close down as wiping out my own TV even with only 5W out. XYL not amused! Next year will try another location.

GX8VER
Both operators are members of VARC

M0AWX
inverted-L with 90ft vertical section

M0DDT
Very noisy band and I did not continue till the bitter end.

M0ICK/P
Inverted L at 30ft in my local church grounds nice and friendly just like VHF see you next year

M0LUV
Nice to hear top band so lively

M0LUY/P
Kenwood TS 570 204ft Doublet Thanks to those who I completed with

M0MMI
Very enjoyable friendly contest

M0RHS
TS2000 dipole

M0SIY
Good contest, good conditions. Tnx to lswc for the loan of the trailer mast!!

M0UFC
I enjoyed taking part - it was my first venture on topband!

MX0AAA
My 1st go at this contest. Enjoyable but slow towards the end. Contest could be an hour shorter as most folks worked each other in first two hours.

MX0TTG
FT1000 Mk-v Field Inverted V. Contest started well for the first hour then a heavy downpour brought rain static which made copy more difficult. 30 minutes later a power cut brought things to an early end. Power resumed a few minutes later only to fail again after five minutes and was finally restored at one minute to eleven! Apologies to those QSO's affected. Altogether a very frustrating event.