RSGB 50 MHz CW Trophy Contest 2015

The RSGB 50MHz CW Trophy contest on the 28th of June at 09:00- 12:00 UTC under the Blacksheep DX & Contest Group callsign"M0BAA/P" from locator IO91MP.
Bill M0BTZ joined me up on the hill were we put together our Portable setup, FT847 with 100W and a 5 Element Tonna Yagi about 6 meters off the ground.


There was Poor conditions on the 6M band with very little Tropo propagation around and UK activity was low, Thank god for some sproadic E propagation to keep us on our toes but not as much as we would have liked, Weather was Mild but it did rain a few times which hindered rotating the mast at times as we went with the old armstrong method this time around.  We entered the Open section as it was set out for Portable stations and finished up the contest with a claimed score of 50 QSO's 9,375 Points with "YO2BBT" as our ODX of 1797Km. 

Here is a Video of Me operating during the contest:

Here is a map of our QSO's:

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UPDATE - 21/07/2015

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50 MHz CW 2015

This is the fourth year of the 50MHz CW contest. The number of entries has continued to decrease with only 21 entries this year. Though there were 85 UK stations active in the event.

Tropo conditions were reported as being from flat to poor to terrible. There was patchy sporadic E throughout the event though only 31 Es QSOs were completed with 12 stations in DL, EA, EA8, I, IS0, OZ, YO and YU. The best DX was between G4SGX and EA8DBM at 3098 kms and the best tropo contact was between G3ZVW and GM4PPT at 529 kms.

During the adjudication 8.3% of QSOs were disallowed and some entrants will notice large reductions in their claimed scores. Again the most common error was with RST.

Congratulations go to:

The Tiverton (SW) RC G4TSW for winning the Open section.

Steve G3ZVW for winning the SF section.

The other certificate winners who are identified in the results tables.

This contest is the second leg of the 2015 VHF CW Championship. G4TSW maintain their lead followed by M0BAA/P.

Roger - G4BVY

Thanks to Roger for adjuciating this contest and to all that gave us points during the contest delighted to come in 2nd place, look forward to the next contest, 73 - Pat EI5IX / M0XII

RSGB / IARU 50Mhz Trophy Contest 2015 from IN79JX

On June 20th & 21st the RSGB & IARU R1 - 50 MHz International Trophy Contest took place. I was active again this year with The BlackSheep Contest and DX Group under the callsign "G8T" from Locator square IN79JX. I arrived on site on Friday evening to help the Team put together our station for the weekend.

G8T 50 MHz Contest Station 

Band conditions were very patchy with very few Es on Saturday but much better on Sunday. Our ODX was KP4S at 6453Km via multihop Es on Saturday evening. We finished up the Contest with a claimed score of 638 QSO's and 232 Multipliers totaling 177,146,848 points.

WX was foggy and windy at times right on the coast. 

 Team putting antennas together 

Versa Tower no.2 going up

Mandy and Myself enjoying a nice Cuppa Taé

Mike G8TIC and Tim G4LOH

 Jaxon in the hot seat

 Mummy (Mandy) getting Jaxon all prepared

Daddy (Matt G0XDI) taking a rest with Jaxon

I got to say a big Thank you to the guys of the Blacksheep Contest group it was a fantastic weekend. (Pic L>R: Andy 2E0IBF, Bill M0BTZ (with the 50Mhz Telford Trophy from 2013 & 2014), Matt G0XDI, Mike G8TIC (With Shackle our Blacksheep), Rohan M6TIC, 

Nick G4FAT (With the Surrey NFD Trophy from 2014) Tim G4LOH including myself Pat EI5IX / M0XII. Thanks to Matt's wife Mandy for taking the Photo of us all, it certainly was a fantastic experience and great weekend with the group. Looking forward to our next one together. 

UPDATE - 16/07/15

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There was very good sporadic-e for this contest with 26 stations working across into the Caribbean and Cape Verde at over 6000km. Well done to UR7D and Z35T for working KP4 - Puerto Rico at over 8000km and to G1ZJP, G0VHF/P and M0WAF/P for working PJ4 - Bonaire at over 7000km.

Looking through the logs was very interesting and although at times the e"s were patchy there were 332 different locators up for grabs and 2107 different call-signs appear in the logs. A strong opening to the east and south-east enabled good points for many with good activity from most countries i.e. there were 267 unique Italian calls in the logs.
Turnout this year was similar to last year (98 this year compared to 93 in 2014) with the exception of an increase of overseas entries from 12 to 17 and sections 6S and SF were up by 4 each.

The same logging errors appeared this year as last year and common errors were incorrect serial numbers, some odd calls due to Mixing I"s and O"s with numbers and strange locators i.e. a station placed in Asiatic Russia (not permitted!) and a European station moved to South America and so on. It is worthwhile at least sense checking prefixes and typo funnies before submitting as a number of these were obviously wrong!
There were a number of stations using the DX window 100-130 to conduct European QSOs which contravenes the IARU band plan. The rules are quite clear on this and if you are going to CQ in the window you can only count the QSOs with other continents and should not work the European callers. Warnings have been issued and hopefully next year I will not be reporting on this.

The use of chat websites e.g. KST are allowed for this contest as it is in line with an IARU event but please remember do not to pass any information or assist the QSO in any way apart from agreeing a frequency to work each other, things like please "send the serial again" is seen as assisting the QSO and will result in a penalty being applied. If you want to stop the other station assisting during the QSO then say before starting "No chat during the QSO please".

A final note on operating; I have received complaints and noted myself that some stations were frequency hopping onto other stations frequencies where QSOs were in progress. It is courteous to ask if the frequency is in use (or QRL? In cw) before starting CQ Contest as mutual QRM always destroys the QSO rate for both parties.

Well done to the Blacksheep CG operating again down on the Lizard in Cornwall for retaining the Telford Trophy with a massive score and congratulations to G8XVJ/P " Erik operating from IO93 who takes the Six Metre Cup with a huge lead over the other contenders in this category.
Well done to all the other certificate winners", details are shown in the results tables on the RSGB Website.

Dave Edwards 
g7rau@rsgbcc.org

73's

Pat