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LF CONTEST

Posted: Mon May 06, 2013 5:10 pm
by G4cqrdave
THE 2nd YEAR RUNNING OF POOR CONDITIONS ON THE LF BANDS I CALLED CQ FOR A HOUR WITH NO REPLIES, GAVE UP !

COULD THE CONTEST DATE BE CHANGED TO A TIME WHEN THERE IS A BETTER CHANCE OF GOOD CONDITIONS. IE END OF THE YEAR OR THE THE FIRST FEW MONTHS OF THE YEAR

I KNOW CONDITIONS CHANGE FROM YEAR TO YEAR,( SUN SPOT CYCLE) BUT WHAT I HAVE READ THERE WILL BE LITTLE CHANGE NEXT YEAR.

PREHAPS A TEMPORY CHANGE FOR NEXT YEAR WOULD BE A ANSWER

ANY THOUGHTS

Re: LF CONTEST

Posted: Mon May 06, 2013 6:34 pm
by G1PIE
you are right dave, best time for LF is november to the end february.
so please with the AGM coming up can we have a change.
73
mark.

Re: LF CONTEST

Posted: Tue May 07, 2013 10:25 am
by G4cqrdave
Thanks for your support Mark, first reaction from our contest manager under topic NEWS is that he has had lots of entries so conditions could not be that bad
it could have been much better, if the conditions were good
poor conditions seem to effect certain areas of the country differently
conditions did improve during the contest, I talked to a few stations all complaining about poor conditions.
so we will see if any others take the trouble to reply to this idea
73's Dave

Re: LF CONTEST

Posted: Tue May 07, 2013 1:13 pm
by G0FVH
Yes conditions not good, when the higher bands are open ie 10m 15m 17m, usually during the summer months, LF bands are much down ?
So winter time would make sense, for the LF contests and move the HF ones to the summer ?

DAVE
G0FVH.

Re: LF CONTEST

Posted: Tue May 07, 2013 5:47 pm
by M6ADB
Never mind during the contest, conditions on 40m have been a tad unsporting [*] for a few weeks.

I got four in the log, in the first hour (and failed to make it to a number of other WAB contest stations)then nothing but noise for two hours (all whilst mobile) ... but was off-air for the last hour.

[*] So as to not offend sensibilities....

Re: LF CONTEST

Posted: Wed May 08, 2013 10:19 pm
by DamianM0BKV
There is always going to be a chance of poor conditions on any band with Amateur Radio. This year we unfortunately had just experienced a lot of solar activity. Could happen at any time of year. Like racing a sailing boat - often there's no wind another day it's 60mph gales. You can never get it right but whichever I bet Ben Ainsley would still win. The first station I worked a couple of mins after 10utc on Sunday was on s/no 16.... I think 'ringers' shouldn't be allowed HI

Re: LF CONTEST

Posted: Thu May 09, 2013 9:23 am
by G4cqrdave
hi Damian
to continue your analogy of yacht racing
when there is no wind, they delay or cancel racing , but unfortunately when we have no propagation we cant cancel
so I would have thought the committee should organise contests to take place when propagation has the best chance of being good.
there has been a declining entry to the wab contests, and I have heard talk of cancelling them
there was this year lots of members taking part several for the first time, and most had a disappointing experience

Re: LF CONTEST

Posted: Sat May 11, 2013 5:09 am
by g4iar
If you have a suggestion to make, we welcome them, but could you please use the correct channels and contact the Awards Manager personally with them. The forum is not an official means of contact as it relies on someone noticing the posts, rather than having a message delivered directly to them.

One comment about having this one in the winter months. Have you thought about the mobiles? They have the road conditions as well as the band conditions to worry about as well.

Re: LF CONTEST

Posted: Tue May 21, 2013 2:09 pm
by g3xkt
Hi All

I was pleased to read all your comments on the recent LF contest, at least it shows that there is still some interest in WAB contesting. I have already had more entries to this contest than we have had since 2010 although I like to think that this may be due to my pep talk in the last Newsletter HI. I am not going to give any results away yet but but I can say that there has been a lot of entries with scores of over 10,000. The longish skip conditions did tend to favour the far flung stations especially in the south but some home county stations did very well. We do of course listen to your suggestions and will consider a change of date, but I think that I agree with Damian when he say's that you can get bad conditions any time of the year. One thing that surprised me slightly was that not a single contact had been recorded on 80m by anyone in the contest,
Anyway thank you all for your entries and and your comments on this forum and remember you have still got until next Sunday to send me your entry, if you have not already done so.

73, Tony Beardsley, WAB Contest Manager

Re: LF CONTEST

Posted: Tue May 21, 2013 7:06 pm
by G1PIE
hello tony,
it was my first WAB contest. allthough i did not spend all the time on the radio during the contest.
i found the contest very good and enjoyed it, will most likely have a proper go next year.
but thanks again tony for helping sort my claim out.
73,
mark.
Happy WAB'ing