BERU 2009 Soap Box

Call: G0HVQ
Operator(s): G0HVQ
Station: G0HVQ

Class: Restricted LP

Radio ICOM IC7400 100w
Antennas Hustler 4BTV (ground mounted with radials) plus low dipole for 80m
Software: N1MM

Forget the claimed score, as N1MM isn't scoring it right and I haven't got the
time nor inclination to do it manually!

Only my 2nd BERU, both at the bottom of the cycle, picked my operating times
wisely this year and seemed to be rewarded.

10m - nothing

15m - sparce but some good ones - VK6LW, ZD8RH and VP8KF. Could have done with
another hour at the end, just opening here with 7Q7BP working a pile-up as the
contest closed.

20m - a bit disappointing, but pleased to get ZL2IFB and AP2NK right at the
end.

40m - best of the lot, surprised to work the usual VKs and ZLs before tea time,
plus got called by VK5SW. Signals from VK and ZL were much stronger than last
year, but the 'S meter destruction' award goes to 6Y8XF.

80m - only had a low dipole but pleased to get my first ZL on this band (ZL4CT)
plus VE and Caribbean.

Good fun again, must sort out an 80m vertical for next year.

73
Darrell G0HVQ
-----------------------------------------
Call: G3LET

Class: Open HP
QTH: West Sussex
Operating Time (hrs): 12

Rig: Orion II
Antennas: 1 - 250ft wire, sloping down to the shack from a sequoia at 150ft
2 - BiggIR vertical, with base at 30 ft
Logging: By hand, with SD to prepare the log file after the event (and check
the score!)

OK, we're still rolling along the bottom of the sunspot switchback, so this was
probably the last opportunity to take advantage of some amazing LF propagation.
With 10 out of action and 15 open for very short periods, I chose the 12 hour
section this year, which probably didn't have that much impact on the overall
score. Some truly amazing signals from VK and ZL on 80m and 40m were the
highlight, with 40m open to somewhere or other for most of the day. Special
thanks to Arasu VU2UR for introducing an excellent South India team and to the
organisers of the African, VE, VK, ZL UK and ROW teams, all of which made this
years event one to remember.

Note: For those making a 12 hour entry and competing for the Ross Carey Rose
Bowl (UK) or VP8GQ Trophy (non-UK), please note that the 12 hours is your
actual operating time, not elapsed time from your start. Rest periods in
between (but not at the start or end) must be a minimum of 60 minutes and
listed in your soapbox comments.

-------------------------------
Call: G4FKA

Class: Restricted LP
QTH: Bristol
Operating Time (hrs): 20

Any chance of a competitive score was dashed after about an hour when an S9+
hash, not experienced before in around 6 years of HF operation from this QTH,
descended on 20m and stayed there for the rest of the contest. It vanished
shortly after the end and brings to mind all sorts of conspiracy theories
regarding rivals strapping noise sources to the local lamp-post! I'm sure it
was nothing of the sort but it was most frustrating that its presence was so
co-incidental with the contest period.

The rest of the contest was damage limitation and fortunately 40m had excellent
propagation to VK, ZL and generally to the east. The various world travellers
helped to add 5 new ones to my 40m DXCC count and 3 new ones on 80 so it wasn't
all bad news.

2 more QSOs than last year but raw total slightly down as I missed all the
"bread and butter" QSOs on 20m because of the high noise level.

I maanaged to keep going until around 0600 but then hit the concentration wall
due to rather long hours in work these last few weeks.

Station was the usual wet string wire antenna farm of a 30m inverted V doublet
at 10m, 40m quarter wave vertical and sloping dipole for 10/15. IC756ProIII at
100w doing the business in the shack with Writelog and the microHAM interface
box.

Nice to work everyone and well done to the travellers for keeping the contest
interesting. Hopefully the noise will have gone by next year!

---------------------------------------------------
Call: G6PZ
Operator(s): GI0RTN

Class: Open HP
QTH: Zummerzet

Reading G4BUO and G3BJ's write-ups, I do sometimes wonder if I operated the same
contest. I had a flurry of "what, how did you miss thats" and "I didn't know he
was on 40s". I missed any VEs on 15, but pulled in all the VE6/7 bonuses on 20
with room to spare, and bagged a couple of VE7s on 40 at their sunset (but none
popping up at dawn, when they're usually stronger). I think I worked more ZSs
than the competition on 40/80, but only managed VK9AA on 15, missed 2 VU
bonuses on 15 that should have been easily workable. Missed AP2NK on 15 and
80, any VK3 or VK5, only worked J88DR and 6Y8XF from the Caribbean on 15,
missed 7Q7 on 15, etc., etc. Should have spent more time beaming Africa and
some time beaming West on 15 - the Africa strategy was a good 'un on 20 and 40,
need to get used to being a big gun in this one.

Long path on 40 sounded very loud on Sunday morning, but having done well SP, I
soaked up all the unworked ZLs by 0530, only worked one new VK, and couldn't
seem to get any VK casuals to call in.

I've always wanted to do BERU from a really great station, and am greatly
thankful to Paul for making it happen this year. It was an awful, awful,
awful, lot of fun. But work is EXTREMELY busy at the moment, and I was up
working on a speech until after 2 am on Friday night/Saturday morning before
getting up at 5.15 for the flight to Bristol. I'm usually good at
concentration for long stretches as a contester but the lack of sleep really
caught me at the end of the contest and I went to pieces mentally, very badly,
after about 0700.

I'm sure there were more stations to be worked by moving S&Pers off other
people's run frequencies, targeted CQs, swinging the antenna more and changing
band, but I was badly 'sleep drunk' and lacked the ability to do much other
than sit on a frequency hitting F1. Should have CQed to Canada for a while on
40, and did manage a short burst of 5 VK/ZLs on 20 after 0830 for thought it
must be a short path opening and left the antenna there. I have never been so
mentally muntered during a contest before, especially a 24 hour one.

I didn't go into the contest thinking I could actually win, with Justin at M6T,
but I was only two bonus QSOs away from beating him and only seven from beating
Don for the win. Had I known I was that close I may have kept it together a
bit better in the last few hours and pulled out the extra QSOs from somewhere
on Saturday. Especially, I don't think I made the most of 15. There were more
QSOs to be made there. But more lessons to be learned, as always. Overall I am
happy with how I utilised a vastly better station in a contest where strategy is
king.

Great to hear all the VUs and ZSs and congratulations to G3PJT and G4BUO for
all the work in getting them involved. VK seems to be the problem now, with
great activity from committed clusters but little casual activity. Perhaps
someone could do an article for the WIA magazine like the one I did for RadCom
a few years ago, except from an Oz perspective.

Most fun bits - too many to count, but V8 on two bands, filling out VU bonuses
on 2 bands with room to spare, VY1EI on 20, big loud VKs and ZLs on 40 at
sunset, the great patience of VK4OQ, VU2PTT and ZS4U to give me ESP bonuses on
80, all the old familiar calls, all the new calls. Not fun bits - 15m on
Sunday morning being the worst I have EVER heard it, even worse than the Sunday
of WWCW this year.

Congratulations to G3BJ on the clubhouse lead and what looks like a great win,
also to VE3EJ for an awesome score in solar minimum conditions.

73 and see you all next year.

-------------------------
Call: MD0CCE

Class: Open HP
QTH: Isle of Man
Operating Time (hrs): 12

Woke up on contest morning to see the SteppIR tilted at a 45-degree angle as the
threaded rod maintaining the elements horizontal had sheared in the winds of the
night (fourth structural failure due to winds this year). The inverted vees for
80m and 160m were hanging loose, caught in the third tower section, and the wind
was still blowing too hard to lower the tower, so I tried SWR and found it all
working and decided to see what would happen in the contest with the antennas
in that sorry state.

Conditions were good on 40m at the start, followed by strong signals from VK/ZL
on 20m; a good beginning to the contest. Great activity from a very wide range
of countries (some not in the Commonwealth at all!) made the contest very
interesting - many thanks to all for the FB QSOs!

Given the state of the antennas and my anxiety to get the tower down to sort
them out, I opted for a 12-hour contest.

Rig: FTDX-9000D, Quadra set to 400W, N1MM (which couldn't calculate the score
correctly) and MK2R+. Antennas as above!

73, Bob
-------------------------------------------------
Call: VA7ST

2009 -- SFI: 69 | Ap: 17>9 | Kp: 3
2008 -- SFI: 70-71 | Ap: 2 | Kp: 2-4

Conditions on 20M were not good at all, particularly for over-the-pole to
G-land. The Saturday morning opening was very weak and muddy for about an hour
and a half, with just a few minutes of peak activity. Even at the brief peak,
only a few signals (examples: G4BUO, G6PZ) were heard without pronounced
auroral effects.

Highlights: spent several minutes trying to work Zambia. Always a pleasure to
hear 9J2BO here, even though I couldn't get through the line-up waiting to work
him. He wasn't very loud, but was solid copy. A while later, while I was
plaintively bleating CQ over the pole, two strong African stations stopped in:
7Q7 and 5X1, both new ones for me.

While working Oceania on 20M Saturday afternoon, some lid sat on top of me and
repeatedly sent "QRT" as I tried work weak ZLs. Wouldn't ID himself. I ended up
having to turn 180 degrees back to VE before he stopped harassing me. No action
from VE at all, so I ended up going QRT until 40M opened in the evening. Wish
these lily-livered anonymous losers had the courage to act that way in person.
But then they'd have all those orthodontist bills to pay.

Not sure how badly this episode hurt my score -- probably only missed half a
dozen Oceania Qs at the rate I was going.

Good paths to ZL/VK on 80, 40 and 20M, and it was great to work so many -- been
a while.

Ended up with score improvement over previous years, but I had expected to do
much better for the team. With a maxed-out local lid index, low flux and high
Ap, conditions didn't play out as I'd hoped.

Year       Qs   Points
-------------------------
March-09 149   2,125 HP
March-08 117   1,545 HP
March-07 190   1,850 HP
March-06   99   1,095 LP
March-05   74     908 LP
March-04   23     580 LP

-----------------------------------------------
Call: VE3FU
Class: Open HP

Antennas: TH6 @ 72ft, EX14 @ 72ft, wire vertical dipole (40m), wire vertical
(80m)
Rig: TS-950SD, TS-430 (TX broken. Used to listed for signals / openings on
other bands)
Amp: TL-922 (tnx VO1AU / VE3AAQ)
Software: SDC v14.22

Biggest lesson learned this weekend? I need separate RX antennas for the low
bands!

I've been _slowly_ putting together a new station since changing QTH a few
years ago. The towers and tribanders went up last Fall. My plan was for a
couple of phased loops for 40m and to shunt feed the towers, one for 80m, and
one for 160m (not that I could use it during the BERU :=), but I ran out of
time before winter and it's extra-curricular activities hit.

About 6 weeks ago I had no antennas for 40m or 80m. Not wanting to miss out on
the BERU like I did last year, I put up a wire vertical dipole for 40m hanging
from one tower and a full sized wire vertical for 80m hanging from the other
tower. Other than when I connected them to check the SWR, this was really the
first chance I had to listen on them.

The noise on the low bands was surprising and not what I was expecting. This
is a relatively rural area with no large industry - just 1.5 acre residential
lots and farmers fields. I was hoping that the noise was related to the
conditions, so I called a local friend to see if he was hearing the same level
of noise. We tuned in the same station on 40m and I could hear the station
better over the telephone than I could hear myself.

As evident from my 40m and 80m QSO numbers compared to other VE3s, there were a
lot more stations to work. I think I was getting out OK - it was just the RX
part that was the problem. Sorry if I sounded like an alligator. Most of the
QSOs I made on those bands were just at the noise level. In most cases, I had
to send the received number back to the station calling to confirm that I had
it right. There were quite a few times I could tell some one was calling but I
just couldn't make them out. I won't be surprised if the difference between my
submitted score and my corrected score is much higher than usual :=)

Still one of my favourite contests. See you again next year - hopefully with
RX antennas for the low bands!

Thanks for all the Qs!

Chris VE3FU
-------------
Call: VE6CNU

Operating Time (hrs): 9

Sounds like similar condx to what Bud, VA7ST, reported - only worse. I never
did hear Africa or Asia at all and the increased solar wind on Saturday morning
made it difficult to copy anything on 20m. There were loud noise bursts and
rapid QSB which required multiple repeats of calls and exchanges. 40m was
really poor and 80m was virtually hopeless, except for a few strong VE3s. As
this was my first BERU contest, I wasn't sure what to expect, but there didn't
seem to be much activity. This was probably due to a number of factors, such
as my poor location, poor propagation, nothing fancy station, and maybe fewer
participants because of conditions. I also had some family commitments so I
couldn't work as many hours as I would have liked. It probably wouldn't have
made much difference, though.

I used N1MM to log the contest as I tried to figure out SDC but couldn't. It
looked like something from the old DOS days and I really don't want to spend
hours learning something that I'll only use, at best, once a year. The only
thing N1MM did was to allow me to reformat the log to Cabrillo. It was useless
for scoring as this contest has no multipliers (which N1MM put in). Also, the
rules were not that clear to me, but I still tried my best anyway. It didn't
explain the difference betwee 12 hours and 24 hours (was this operating time?),
what constituted time off (was there any?), and when the 12 hour period could
start. So I don't know which category I'm in since I worked less than 12 hours
but maybe not the first 12 hours.

The best thing was seeing all the ZLs and VKs come out of the woodwork. It was
fun to work them on so many bands. If we ever get some solar activity, this
should be a fun contest down the road.

Jerry
VE6CNU
--------------------
Call: VE6JY
Operator(s): VE6BF

Class: Open HP
QTH: AB
Operating Time (hrs): 7

Conditions seemed reasonably OK at the start, with some good VK/ZL signals on
the low bands, and by the time Bill went up to 20, the G's were in nicely. Then
Murphy started giving us hi SWR readings on the 20m array and we sacrificed an
amplifier, but he still was unhappy. So with the 20m problem still undetermined
- either up the tower or in the 350 feet of underground feeder - neither of
which was going to be located or repaired on the spot, we decided to cut things
short and enter the 12 hour category. The Eu run on 20 was over anyway, and
from Western Canada, it would be slow going for the rest of the contest
anyway.

73 Don
VE6JY
-----------------------------
Call: VK6LW

Class: Open HP
QTH: Perth
Operating Time (hrs): 24

Improved antennas here and better score than last year, HF predictably tough,
VK6 seems a long way from anywhere with no sunspots!! 2 ele beam on 40 worked
very well (good on 15 too) and beverages made a big difference on 40 and 80
receive with our high QRN here. Just a loop for the other bands, Rig is
FT1000MP. Activity seemed pretty good, team contest concept helps I think,
although during the day in the latter part of the contest it was hard going
trying to find QSO's. Great to make a few QSO's on 10 at the end with Asia and
C4/ZC4. Looking forward to condx improving.
-----------------------------------------
Call: VO1MP

Class: Open HP
QTH: NL
Operating Time (hrs): 7

New Computer decided that it didnt like Software I used last year so logged it
all in N1MM ... of course this program doesnt do Beru so will have to
manually calculate score ( make that Manually with the computer ? bit of a
contradiction) ... any body who used N1MM .... I wonder how they scored it
..... not a big deal can always submit it as check log.. lots of fun
and was delighted to get off to such a good start early saturday morning
on 40 meters..... started out quite undecided how long or far I would go
with the test .... always fun ............ sort of a laid back contest
nice to see so many familiar calls...
C'Y'all next one
GLWCDR

73 Gus VO1MP
------------------------------
Call: VU2PTT

Class: Open HP
QTH: Bangalore MK82tx
Operating Time (hrs): 20.5

Rig: Icom 746-PRO + SB-200 Amp (400 W)
Ant: Force 12 C3/S at 60', 40m Inv-Vee at 55', 80m Inv-L GP w/1 radial
Interface: MicroHAM MicroKeyer II (CAT, Winkey, Amp keyer, sound card)

Another BERU goes by, one of the real fun contests for me :)

It was good to work a lot of friends/familiar callsigns and am just
waiting to hear how it sounds when the Sun is more benevolent to us all. I
nearly toppped my previous best in BERU 1998 exactly 11 years ago as AT0PTT
with 4385 points when I only had a G5RV antenna.

Score was about 30% better than last year but conditions were worse this
time round. Should put it down to station improvements and no energy
expended in putting up last minute antennas and station wiring which was
the norm in the past. Thanks to the XYL VU2AQB for a very functional
operating desk (see QRZ.COM for a picture).

Missed all the Carribeans save 8P0P on 40m, that really underlined the poor
conditions overall at this end. I was hoping to work them all at least on
40m, but the Sun said NO.

80m - Back on 80m this year but with just 13 QSOs, need to improve the
antenna system. Did work some of the big 'uns from UK and of course
ZC4/5B4 and also VQ9JC. A RX loop is in the works.

40m - Played fairly well but I guess it could have been better. Couple of
VE QSOs improved the feel good factor.

20m - The money band these days out here but I guess the VE opening was not
good enough.

15m - Had some expectations on this band, but it all fell flat. Towards the
end ended up working Africa & VK and trying to move stations to 10m.

10m - Although practically dead showed some surprising signs of life with
huge sgnals from 9J2BO, VK9AA and VK6-LW, BN, AJ. Should be heard to be
believed and people say 10m is dead, NO I say, at least to some parts of
the world signals are HUGE.

HQ Stations - Only three heard and worked this year - VU2LYX (5 bands),
GB5CC (2 bands), ZL6A (2 bands).

Thanks to Arasu VU2UR for motivating a whole group of people to sign up for
Team South Asia - some of you must have been surprised to hear several VU2
stations calling CQ BERU. It was a new experience for me to hear at least five
VU2 stations calling CQ on different parts of 20 m all at the same time!

All QSOs in the contest were recorded like last year, and if you want to
hear any particular QSO just ask and I shall send it out.

Worked on multiple bands:

5 Bands - 1
4 Bands - 12
3 Bands - 18
2 Bands - 41
1 Band - 157

My logs are already on ARRL LoTW, adn I see several matches already.

See you all in the next BERU. I will be in the RDXC contest next weekend and
hope to bump into many of you then.

73 de Prasad VU2PTT.

-----------------------------------------------
Call: VY1EI
Operator(s): ERIC

Class: Open HP
QTH: Yukon
Operating Time (hrs): 24

This was my first BERU. I don't think writelog recorded my score correctly.

Crummy conditions for most of the contest, except for the path to Australia and
New Zealand. The aurora was strong the whole contest period. It wasn't over my
QTH but justabout and all signals to Europe were under that strong auroral
watery flutter. I got few Canadian contacts. Surprised by that. For most of the
contest there was no noise floor on 20 meters at all, like the band was totally
shut down, but very weak signals from VK and ZL were common. No contacts with
South Africa or India.

Different contest for sure. No pileups. Lots of time to complete a QSO if its
hard to copy the exchange information. The highlight of the contest was when
ZD8RH from Ascension Island Island called in.

-----------------
Call: ZC4LI
Operator(s): STEVE

Class: Open HP
QTH: ESBA CYPRUS
Operating Time (hrs): 24

Antennas:- C/Craft A3S + 40M addon @ 50ft. Titanex 160HD, J-Beam @ 30ft
Rigs:-      Icom-756 Pro3 - Icom-756
Amps:-      Acom-1000, Ten-Tec Hercules 2.
Software:   Win-Test 3.24

Thanks to the organisers and to everyone for the Q's.
Condx here were to put it frankly - CRAP.
Nuff said.

Log is on LoTW for paper cards pse see QRZ.COM.

73 and hope to cu in the BARTG and the RUDX this weekend. Steve.
-------------------------------------------
Call: ZL1AZE

Class: Open HP
QTH: ZL2
Operating Time (hrs): 22

Equipment: FT1000MP (MkV Field) + AL80A amp
Antennas: Half wave dipoles supported from a 15 metre pole

It was good to be back in this contest after missing it in 2008. In earlier
years I have entered the contest from ZL6QH, so I did not have great
expectations this year for achieving much from the modest set up at my city
QTH. As expected, the total tally of 310 QSOs is well down on ZL6QH numbers,
but the score is better than anticipated due to a high number of bonus QSOs. It
was difficult to run stations from my home QTH so I had no choice but to spend
more time moving around the bands and working bonus QSOs.

As usual there were some unplanned events that I could have done without!

Just before the contest started I found that the Writelog Commonwealth Contest
module would not start up correctly on the computer that I normally use for
radio logging. This was a surprise as I had already checked that the software
worked correctly on another computer. After reinstalling the Writelog software
several times and trying various other modules I eventually ended up using the
CQ WPX CW module. This module does not identify Commonwealth bonus QSOs or
apply the correct scoring, but these are not essential features and I could
live without them. Overall I ended up with over an hour of downtime between
1000z and 1200z while I was trying to sort out this problem. The lesson here
(even though I should have learnt it well from previous experiences!) is to set
up the actual contest log well in advance of the start time, not 30 minutes
beforehand.

The level of local man made noise level was also much higher than I had
anticipated. A new noise source (or sources) showed up over the weekend, just
in time for the Commonwealth contest. This noise was particularly troublesome
as it raised the noise floor for the entire contest on all bands by about 20 dB
and wiped out several layers of weak signals. Consequently there were many
occasions when I could hear stations calling but it was impossible to copy them
through the local QRN. I was determined to try tracking down the source of the
noise on the Monday after the contest, but there was no longer any trace of it
to be found!

Propagation seemed very poor on the upper bands, and not helped by the low
dipole antennas at my home QTH. I only ended up making two QSOs on 10M (thanks
to ZL2IFB and ZL2AZ) and heard no other stations on this band. 15M QSOs were
limited to ZL/VK stations and 9 VE stations. The 80M and 40M bands were in much
better shape, although 80M QSOs were often difficult due to S9 lightning QRN.

My city QTH is about 100 metres above sea level on a steep hill side. The east
facing downhill direction provides a good clear takeoff for the long path to
Europe, and the short path to America. However the takeoff for the short path
to Europe and Asia is poor as it is in the west facing up hill direction.
Consequently, as expected, I struggled to make QSOs via the short path to UK
and to the Asian areas, especially on the upper bands where a low take off
angle is more important. The fact that I only made 2 QSOs on 20M prior to
1921z is evidence of this constraint. The good news is that there were
excellent 80M and 40M long path openings on Sunday evening, and I made use of
these to put some G QSOs in the log. Of particular note were the very early
QSOs with G4BUO and GM0GAV on 80M at 0550z, one hour before our sunset.
Unfortunately there was no 20M long path opening, except for a few isolated
QSOs on Sunday morning with G4MEM, G6PZ, G4BUO, G4TSH and G4BJM.

I was pleased to work all of the stations in the â€?Rest of The Worldâ€™ team
as well as 3 stations from the VU team. The only African station worked was
VQ9JC, on 80M and 40M. There was no sign of 9J2BO in the usual 0530z slot on
20M. I did hear a weak ZS1 station working VE stations on 40M around 0530z but
decided not to waste premium QSO time trying to get through the QRM.

The noise and software problems were very frustrating but overall I enjoyed the
contest and reckon it is still one of the best events on the international
contest calendar. I plan to be back next year, hopefully from a new ZL6QH
station, or from another location which is less noisy than my home QTH.

Thanks to everyone for the QSOs, especially those who travelled to the more
remote parts of the globe.

---------------------------------
Call: ZL2BR

Class: Open HP
QTH: New Plymouth NZ
Operating Time (hrs): 21

Conditions were pretty much the same as last year.

Some good stuff:
At least 21 ZL stations were active
80m working VQ9JC, P3J, C4Z, ZC4VJ and VP8KF
20m working VY1EI and VK9AA.

Top highlight goes to the long path contact with VO1MP on 40m, which is very
unusual. Working east coast North America via LP on 20m is pretty common from
ZL, but dont think have ever worked a NA station on 40m via LP before. Even
more interesting is that this happened at 1915utc which is an hour after our
sunrise and 2 hours before VO1 sunset.

The bad stuff:
High level of local EMI noise on 40 and 80. Very frustrating not being unable
to copy all the G stations that were calling me.
As expected no African stations were heard.
First time for many years that I did not work GB5CC and only 5 weak G stations
worked on 20m.

Some signal reports:
On 40m, majority of UK stations seemed weaker than expected, best was probably
G3FPQ, followed by G3BJ and G6PZ. Nice signals from VP8KF on 3 bands. Poor
signals from all the Caribbeans, never heard J38CW, best was J88DR. 9H3JT
extremely weak. In general VK6 stations were much stronger than the other VK
stations on 40 and 20. As usual best VE on all bands was VE3EJ

QSO Summary:
Band G VE VK ZL RoW All Bonuses
3.5 12 15 18 14 6 65 43
7 42 33 28 11 14 128 60
14 5 11 25 11 8 60 46
21 7 2 4 13 13
28 1 1 1
Totals 59 66 73 41 28 267 163

Rig: TS-2000, AL80B, Tribander, 40m GP, 80m Inv vee

73, Frank ZL2BR
----------------------------------------------
Call: ZL2IFB

Class: Open HP
QTH: Hawkes Bay
Operating Time (hrs): 21

As the electrons settle on another BERU, I'm in a good mood so must have done OK
this year! There were the usual ups and downs though ...

Ups:
- Finally got the tribander up on Saturday, just in time
- FB Hawke's Bay QTH - so nice not to live in a valley!
- Worked lots of old pals on 80-40-20 and can still remember most of your
names!
- Worked VE7RAC, VK4WIA, ZL6A, plus GB5CC on 20m, for HQ bonuses
- Was called by ZS2DL on 20m at 11:02z, for my very first CQ Zone 38 QSO here
in ZL
- Had a "spare" (4th/non-bonus) VU QSO on 20m for once, though no 4S
- Being lent a spare rig and not needing to use it (thanks for the insurance
ZL2AL!)
- Not too much QRM, just enough to remind me why I bought those IRC filters and
where the Reverse-CW button is
- Polite callers, willing to persist until we completed
- Hand-logged QSOs with around 70 Johnny Foreigners who evidently hanker to
join the Empire and refused to copy repeated hints that I was working "BERU
RSGB TEST VE VK G ZL ONLY"! Managed to faze some by sending their call once
with ENN in the hope they would buzz off.
- Filled some more band-spots (thanks J88DR, H40FN, 6Y8XF, 9H3JT and VQ9JC)

Downs:
- Only had time to rig up the 80m inv-Vee at 11m off the tower, running N-S
- Had to hand-rotate the beam with a rope as I'm 10m short of rotator cable
(doh!), necessitating a dozen dashes up the little hill and causing a few
missed Qs
- Missed 9J2BO completely (DXcluster would have helped I'm sure)
- Tired from climbing the tower and hill, needed 3 hours kip on Sunday morning
and lost the will to contest for the last half hour of BERU
- Had to hand-score in Excel since N1MM hasn't a clue

Equipment: TS850, Amp Supply Co LK550, Cushcraft A3S at 14m, 40m roach-pole
vertical, 80m inv-V at 11m and my trusty Morse Machine

73 and thanks for all the QSOs and friendly comments,
Gary ZL2IFB

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