RSGB Commonwealth CW (BERU)
(8-9/03/2003)
I have never entered this contest before, every year something would happen and I would miss out. Normally my local club's bi-annual flea-market would fall on the first day of the contest.
This year I did spend some time on the air in this contest. I was actually playing with some new equipment, I acquired 2 IC-756 rigs the day before the contest and I thought it would make a nice test to see how well they coped during a contest. I spend quite a bit of time trying options and reading the manual (YES, I have been known to do that !). As a result operating took a bit of a back seat.
I still managed to have lots of fun and even added a few new ones on 40 and 80m. I am also QSY'ed more than ever, going up and down the bands on requests from other stations. I worked quite a few stations on 5 bands (no 160) on request.
After it was all over I did not have a great total (434 QSO's) but I really enjoyed it, I also learned quite a bit, I never new J8 was part of the British empire !. I hope to be back next year for a full out effort !
So thanks to all the great operators, I had lots of fun and hope to see you in the next big one, just listen out for the pileup :-)