PEARS VHF CONTEST 2004
A REVIEW BY BARRY ZR2DX
The weekend 23-25 January 2004 saw
the holding of the annual PEARS VHF/UHF Contest, the premier event for
VHF
enthusiasts
in
Southern Africa.
Locally there was somewhat less support for the contest than expected,
with disappointingly few people making the effort to come up on simplex,
even if only to provide the chance of points for the contestants. Notable
exceptions were Donald ZS2BW and Terence ZR2VDL, who came up on the Sunday
afternoon from a mountain outside Cradock and provided much excitement,
not to mention a new grid multiplier! East London stations were very active,
with ZS2CLI, ZS2ZA, ZS2AH, ZR2NB, ZR2REG, ZR2RSA and ZS2ABF being heard.
Gerald ZR2GB and Ken ZS2KW operated from a mountaintop outside Stutterheim,
and were easily worked on 6m, 2m and 70cm in PE. Sadly apart from Andre
ZS2AJ in Grahamstown, KF36, the only other grid multiplier worked in PE
was KF16 with ZS2AZR and ZR2GJ operating from Spitskop, outside Knysna,
on 2m during Saturday. Unfortunately they did not have 6m or 70cm equipment.
To date the only report received from other Divisions was one by Hal ZS6WB,
who reports good activity from both Division 4 and Division 6. Hal reports
hearing ZS4AAR and ZS4B from near Bethlehem (KG41DS) on SSB with a very
good signal into the Johannesburg/Pretoria area.
The 3DA0DX 144 MHz DXpedition to Swaziland met with zero success when heavy
rain made it impossible for Rad to reach the mountaintop operating site
during the entire weekend. ZS6NK also was off the air due to rotator problems
so scarce KG46 was not active on 50 MHz. However, ZS6WI was active so KG46
made it into at least a few 144 MHz logs.
Digital stations were also very active during the contest, with ZS6WB reporting
working Divisions 1,2,4,5 and 6 during the contest. Also for the first
time V5 was worked on 2m FSK441 by a couple of stations, in the form of
Kosie V51E in Outjo. The longest distance 2m contact reported was between
V51E and ZS1NAZ in Cape Town, a distance of 1551km. 6m digital was also
busy, with around 15 stations active.
Locally conditions were very poor for digital operations, but the club
station ZS2PE did make 7 digital QSOs, the first time this callsign has
been heard on these modes. On 2m contacts were made with ZS6DDG in Randburg
and ZS6WB in Pretoria. On 6m the stations worked were ZS6WB twice, ZS4SS,
ZS6AVP and ZS1NAZ.
A sked during Sunday morning between ZR2DX and Dave ZS5DJ in Margate on
JT65B mode proved again the effectiveness of this mode: despite no audible
signals the contact was made very easily indeed on 2m, over a distance
of 565km.
All in all the contest proved to be a success, and was thoroughly enjoyed
by all who took part. The BIG disappointment was the apathy showed by a
large percentage of the membership, who made no effort to even switch on
and give a call on the simplex frequencies. A big thanks to those who DID
make the effort.