SRCC LEAGUE TABLE – NOVEMBER 2020
The number of entries in the CONTACTED section of the League Table for November 2020 was nine – one up on October. Once again, there were no entrants in the HEARD section. The monthly tabulation is shown below.
Ray G4FFY retains top position, followed by Quin G3WRR – an interloper from the bottom half of the table – in second. Quin’s (temporary) elevation selfishly displaces Ian M0CGF and Colin G4LZE by one position into third and fourth respectively. Ted G3EUE moves up one position to fifth, and Rick M0LEP one to sixth. In seventh position is Peter G3ZPB followed by Steve G4FYF in eighth and bringing up the rear, the club call G3SRC in ninth.
The monthly tabulation is shown below:
| ENTRANT | WORKED DXCC / SQUARE | WORKED SRCC MEMBER | WORKED IN CONTEST | POINTS THIS MONTH |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| G4FFY | 106 | 1 | 10 | 224 |
| G3WRR | 66 | 66 | 198 | |
| M0CGF | 75 | 21 | 171 | |
| G4LZE | 63 | 1 | 128 | |
| G3EUE | 43 | 35 | 121 | |
| M0LEP | 14 | 28 | ||
| G3ZPB | 9 | 3 | 24 | |
| G4FYF | 3 | 1 | 8 | |
| G3SRC | 1 | 1 | 3 |
Ray’s 106 scoring contacts (87 DXCCs on HF, plus 19 big squares on VHF) were all on data modes, 89% being FT8 and 11% FT4. These included all the HF bands plus 2m. The largest number of HF contacts (24%) were made on 20m, followed by 160m (17%), 40m (16%), 15m (15%), 12m (10%), 17m (5%), 10m (also 5%), 80m (3%), and 30m (2%). Of these, 66% were European, followed by 10% Asian, 10% North American, 8% African and 6% South American – but no Oceania contacts. He mentioned that, despite a few “gotaways”, he had worked 5 new DXCCs during the month – SU (Egypt) on 40m, T7 (San Marino) on 17m, CX (Uruguay) & AP (Pakistan) on 15m and ZS (South Africa) on 12m. His VHF haul included 5 European countries, which is pretty good work for a vertical colinear!
Quin’s 66 scoring contacts were again all made in contests, the majority being in the CQWW CW event, but with two minor RSGB HF events and 6m AFS also contributing. The CQWW contests are generally regarded as the busiest of the year and are a good opportunity for picking up countries (although getting to the real DX – which particularly in CQWW can imply rarity as well as distance – is often a challenge owing to the competition). He found conditions fairly reasonable: 69% of his contacts were with Europe, with the rest evenly spread between Asia, Africa, North America and South America – but nothing at all from Oceania. 28% were on 40m, followed by around 9% on 160m, 80m, 20 & 15m, with 10m trailing behind at 3%, although the band was quite lively, and contacts were made with Europe, Africa, North America and South America. Interesting ones included CE (Chile) and FY (French Guiana).
Ian too used a contest as an opportunity to pick up contacts – in his case just under a third of his 75 scoring contacts (which were fairly evenly balanced between FT4/8 and SSB) being made in the UKIECC SSB event. The majority (56%) of his contacts were made on 40m, followed by 17m (16%), 80m & 20m (11% each), 15m (4%) & 10m (3%). 58% were with European stations, followed by North America (19%), Asia and South America (both 6%), Africa (5%) and three contacts in Oceania for 4%. Just a few of the interesting ones were 5T (Mauritania, which he has now worked on all the HF bands except 160m & 30m), 9G (Ghana), FS (St Martin, one of three French dependencies in the Caribbean this month), VK3 (Victoria) and ZL (New Zealand). Ian adds that as his garage shack is getting somewhat cold at this time of year, he has now set up the station to be operated remotely from a bedroom, which has to be a major improvement….
Colin’s 63 scoring contacts were as usual all on FT8 and included a contact with one SRCC member (Ray G4FFY). 48% were on 40m followed by 33% on 20m, 8% on 17m, 6% on 15m, 3% on 30m and 2% on 15m. Most of his contacts (71%) were European but included all continents except South America (Asia, North America, Africa and Oceania in descending order). Interesting ones included JA (Japan) on 40m, 5T (Mauritania), and J6 (St Lucia).
Ted too took advantage of a contest to clock up scoring contacts, in his case CQWW CW like Quin, in which he made 35 of his 43 scoring contacts. All his contacts were, as usual, on CW and from 40m to 10m. He bemoans the high speed at which some of the leading contest stations were sending – in some cases 40+ wpm. I have heard the QRQ merchants argue that if you are going to make several thousand contacts you have to keep the speed up – but one has to ask how many contacts with slower speed operators this costs them!
Rick has been rather busier this month, making fourteen scoring for 28 points – most or all with SOTA stations, all but one on HF and European. The non-European exception was a W (USA), which for a QRP station is good going. His activities have been somewhat curtailed by the QRM from his builder using a jack hammer – see picture at right!
The twelve scoring contacts made by Peter included three with SRCC members (the highest number of points for SRCC members by any entrant this month) on FM and eight using FT8 on HF, including J6 (St. Lucia) and VK5 (South Australia).
Steve’s time and attention have been off the League Table ball of late owing to a family health problem, tiling the kitchen, and unblocking drains! Nevertheless, he still managed to submit an entry of 3 DXCC entities and one SRCC member for eight points. Hopefully things will have improved for him in the New Year.
And, last and definitely least, the club G3SRC call was used in the RSGB Club Calls Contest (one of the annual Affiliated Societies (AFS) Contests). CCC takes place on 160m, and a half decent antenna for the band (half wave dipole) is going to be 250+ feet long. Since the QTH of the operator (Quin G3WRR) can only manage an inverted L with a 50ft top at 20ft up, the G3SRC entry was hardly competitive, with nothing outside G worked. But an impressive three points were earned… I should add thanks to Ray who also came on in CCC to boost the club score)!
The cumulative scores at the end of November are shown in the table below. The overall structure remains much the same (as might be expected as we near the end of the year, because each ensuing month’s results make a progressively smaller percentage difference), but there have been a few detail changes. G4FFY moves up to top position, displacing G4LZE to second, G3WRR moves up to fourth displacing G3ZPB to fifth, and M0CGF moves up to seventh displacing M0LEP to eighth: the other entrants maintain their October positions:
| ENTRANT | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | TOTAL |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| G4FFY | 6 | 124 | 480 | 357 | 302 | 94 | 190 | 224 | 1773 | ||||
| G4LZE | 101 | 125 | 124 | 182 | 356 | 176 | 128 | 166 | 118 | 132 | 128 | 1736 | |
| G3EUE | 98 | 104 | 114 | 87 | 129 | 18 | 76 | 36 | 121 | 782 | |||
| G3WRR | 24 | 57 | 24 | 141 | 102 | 8 | 30 | 93 | 198 | 677 | |||
| G3ZPB | 24 | 42 | 38 | 84 | 53 | 78 | 141 | 28 | 21 | 24 | 533 | ||
| G4FYF | 23 | 32 | 62 | 48 | 42 | 50 | 60 | 42 | 35 | 42 | 8 | 444 | |
| M0CGF | 168 | 171 | 339 | ||||||||||
| M0LEP | 16 | 7 | 10 | 10 | 56 | 30 | 22 | 18 | 36 | 14 | 28 | 247 | |
| G3SRC | 78 | 12 | 63 | 3 | 156 | ||||||||
| G4WGE | 6 | 6 |
With one month left to run, it is nip and tuck at the top of the table, so it will be interesting to see whether Ray or Colin wins the (mildly) coveted SRCC Club Cup for 2020! The fact that the two leaders are predominantly or wholly uses of FT4/8 does demonstrate the strength of these data modes for making contacts particularly under poor HF conditions. Indeed, Ray who has (as far as I am aware) only recently come to HF advises that he has already clocked up 110 DXCCs – well done! Comparing that with my relatively meagre 150 or so DXCCs on CW since I started computer logging about 14 years ago (There are probably 20 or so more from paper logging days but I haven’t chased those up) suggests my need to have another bash at getting myself FT8 enabled….
In the absence of comments to the contrary, the rules for the 2021 League Table will remain the same as for 2020, with one exception…..in the absence of any entries for the Heard section, this will be discontinued.
The ionosphere continues to tease us – after its leap up to a SFI of 106 at the of November, it obviously decided it had overdone things a bit, and promptly subsided to the upper 70s in the middle of the month, but now seems to be creeping up again and at the time of writing is sitting at 88. So, as we all seem to be saying about more important matters, let’s hope for a better (ionospheric) 2021!
73, Quin G3WRR (SRCC Leaguemeister)