2021 RD Contest in a Covid lockdown
by Dom Bragge, VK2JNA.
21aug2021

We’re all trying to be good citizens & staying at home as much as possible. When not at home, we’re masked up or exercising alone or just in family groups of one household. This has become a bit tiresome 7 weeks in with no end in sight. Rather depressing however we all try & find our ways to cope. I must admit I’m feeling pretty down about it all.

Our amateur radio club, MWRS can’t meet at the clubhouse however we run a weekly 2m Net in conjunction with zoom which goes on into the night – it certainly helps having some social connection with the gang. During last Wednesday’s net Richard VK2SKY suggested the RD Contest on email – what a great idea, might be just what I need.

Well, I reviewed the rules; upgraded my logging SW (VKCL4); gave the SW a quick test to see if I still knew how to work it & entered all my personal guff inc callsign etc to get ready. I synchronised my laptop clock (I use NetTime); I wondered aloud what sort of 160m antenna I could knock up (but I didn’t). Anyway, I was only going to have a bit of fun with it & didn’t do my first Phone contact until 3.5 hours after the contest began. My antenna is resonant on 40/20/10m so worked quite a few on 40, a couple on 20 & a big fat Zero on 10 🙂 A nice bonus was working Paul VK0PD at Casey Station, Antarctica. Anyway the bug bit hard & I worked on & off until 11:30pm. During one of the lulls I thought “I NEED a 160m antenna”. A 12m f/g mast was busted out of its box: 12m wire taped up the pole (leaning on a pencil pine), 12m singular ground radial & my trusty AT-200 Manual tuner at the base could pull it down to 3:1 SWR. I knocked the rest of the SWR down using the auto-tuner in my FT-1000MKV. I grabbed a couple of 160m Q’s to prove to myself it was worth the 20 minute investment – you bet it was. 160m contacts are double points.

Being the other side of 50 now I grabbed a quick catnap as I was getting punchy. Alarm woke me & the missus (oops – sorry) at 1am. There are triple points between 1-5am on 160m so 2×3=6 points a QSO. Off I went. I thought half an hour would do it but once I exhausted 160 I ploughed through 40 & 20 again. Great thing about this contest in a country with a small amount of hams is you can re-contact every 3 hours. Gee that logging SW comes into its own for managing this.

Now being night-time 80m was pumping & I didn’t have an antenna – dang it! )-; Desperate times call for desperate measures & the lure of points was enough to galvanise me into action. Using the radio’s autotuner I used my (short) 40m halfwave on 80m & made a bunch of contacts that I didn’t think I’d have access to. Another highlight was bumping into my friend Steve Kennedy VK6SJ who was part of a big contest group over in Perth, VK6NC. He got quite a shock when he heard me in the wee hours.

Back to sleep at 2:30am & up again at 7am. I worked through to end of contest (1pm) desperately trying to crack 200 points. I just succeeded but lets see the wash-up as there is always a transcribing error or two (by the “other” stations of course!) so there may be a few nulls. I heard a few other club members around & bumped into some old mates. It is quite a friendly contest, plenty of people asking to swap names & QTH even though not required: Very Gentlemanly. I didn’t hear one clash of egos the whole night long.

Winding down after the contest late on Sunday evening I had a nice long “proper” QSO with Steve VK2STG (south of Cooma) on 160m. He invited me to a 160m net Monday evening which I enjoyed so I’ll have to start thinking about something permanent on Top band.

Anyway, even my family realised I had really great time & it has perked me up a lot. Thanks for the invite Richard, now when’s the next contest?

73’s

Dom

For those who are interested, you can see comments from those who’ve submitted logs – good quick flick through
https://www.vklogchecker.com/Contests/ViewSoapbox/21

Contest information https://www.wia.org.au/members/contests/rdcontest/

Pat VK2PN’s reply

Just to add little bragging to Dom’s efforts.  Here are mine – please note I was doing only CW.  Sadly no Antarctica (Paul does not do CW)

It felt that I made more Qs in the last hour of the contest then the previous 23.

Pat VK2PN