Another year and another UHF contest to forget! High winds and rain on Saturday, but much better weather on the Sunday. Maybe a little tropo first thing Sunday, but really all the DX was by aircraft scatter.

On 432MHz the pick of the crop were DK2A (JN69LF) worked on aircraft scatter, and an easy SSB contact with OK2A (JO60JJ) which was either very good random AS or some early morning tropo enhancment. SK7MW and OZ1BEF provided DX to the NE. South was not very productive with few French stations heard, although skeds seemed to work quite well.

1.3GHz worked well despite the poor conditions, with plenty of good AS contacts in the log, including OK2A, DF4IAO, DL0GTH, DR9A and OZ3Z. QSO numbers were a few up on 2017 but overall points were nearly identical.

2.3GHz also worked well, with good signals received from most stations. Stations over 500km were DL0GTH, DR9A, DL3IAS, DL3IAE.

This year a QSO on 9cm with DL0GTH was completed for a best DX of 684km, with DL3IAE the only other QSO over the 500km mark.

6cm was poor this year with no real DX worked, and the same with 3cm where tests with DK0PU and DL0LN failed when they often work under better conditions.

73

John G3XDY

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