SRCC LEAGUE TABLE – August 2021
Eight entries were received for the August 2021 League Table. Two of the “big three” (Ian M0CGF and Ray G4FFY) maintain their top positions. In the absence of Colin G4LZE (who has been tied up with decorating his house – at least that’s his story…), Steve G4FYF moves up two places to share equal third place with Rick M0LEP who moves up three places. Peter G3ZPB, who submitted a null score last month takes fifth place. The other three entries (Ted G3EUE, Quin G3WRR and Colin G4LZE) were null scores, apparently due to the continuing attractions of the summer – and are listed in order of licence seniority to avoid any suggestions of bias….
| ENTRANT | WORKED DXCC / SQUARE | WORKED SRCC MEMBER | WORKED | POINTS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IN CONTEST | THIS MONTH | |||
| M0CGF | 109 | 0 | 5 | 223 |
| G4FFY | 57 | 4 | 0 | 122 |
| G4FYF | 19 | 4 | 0 | 44 |
| M0LEP | 17 | 5 | 0 | 44 |
| G3ZPB | 5 | 4 | 0 | 18 |
| G3EUE | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| G3WRR | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| G4LZE | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
A slightly higher number of contacts than usual was made with SRCC members, due in part to Pat G4FDN’s trip to the Emerald Isle as GI4FDN/A and EI2JW.
Ian commented that radio was now on the back burner with “real life taking over” in the form of work, children and a new house. 53% of his scoring contacts were made using FT8, 44% using SSB, 2% using FT4 and 1% – a single contact – using MSK144 (meteor scatter). 20m was his dominant HF band, where he made 78% of his contacts, the rest being evenly split (at 11% each) between 40m & 17m. These included all continents except Antarctica with Europe, as one might expect, being dominant at 76%, followed by North America (9%), South America (5%), Africa (4%), Asia (3%) and Oceania (2%) The latter were one QSO each with VK (Australia) and YB (Indonesia). On VHF, 93% of his (mostly FT8) contacts were on 6m and the rest on 4m. Although August is getting quite late in the year for sporadic E, he nevertheless managed to work several squares in the USA and other countries on that mode.
In a comment similar to Ian’s, Ray noted that with holiday and other (mainly canine related) commitments his time was spent other than on radio, and he was only able to manage one solid day’s operating. 80% of his scoring HF contacts were made using FT8, with 14% on FT4 and 5% (3 contacts, all with SRCC members) on SSB. Just short of half were on 40m, followed by 17m (24%), 80m/20m (11%) and 160m/30m (4%). He managed at least one contact with all continents except Oceania and Antarctica. All his VHF contacts were on 2m FT8 and included 9 big squares in England, Belgium and France.
Steve, in what looks like another case of “August syndrome”, lost a week of doing radio as a result of moving his shack from upstairs to a downstairs room. A downstairs shack is always a good move as it allows a shorter earth connection and reduces the likelihood of RF getting into everything. This probably contributes to Steve now having a much lower receiver noise level. The only downside was a “request” from Domestic Management to lay down carpet tiles in the now vacant upstairs room…. Once back to radio, he stoically commented “nothing exciting”. In addition to a number of European contacts on the HF bands his tally includes four SRCC members.
Conversely, Rick managed to find a bit more time for radio this month. This, together with more SOTA stations active following the general easement of lockdown, meant that he was able to gain his highest monthly score so far this year despite finding HF conditions difficult. Notable contacts were with JW (Svalbard) and TF (Iceland), neither of which is exactly a user-friendly operating environment! One of the TF entrants has posted a view from his site with an active volcano in the distance – perhaps occasional complaints about our VHF NFD site at Warlingham are not justified….
The 2021 cumulative table is shown below. As noted before, the cumulative table tends to show much less volatility than the monthly one because it merely adds to the accumulated previous month’s totals. As a result, the only change compared with July is Rick’s move up one place to eighth.
| ENTRANT | JAN | FEB | MAR | APR | MAY | JUN | JUL | AUG | SEP | OCT | NOV | DEC | TOT |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| M0CGF | 310 | 281 | 313 | 220 | 616 | 473 | 441 | 223 | 2877 | ||||
| G4FFY | 211 | 215 | 252 | 224 | 535 | 405 | 431 | 122 | 2395 | ||||
| G4LZE | 179 | 177 | 239 | 180 | 592 | 319 | 217 | 0 | 1903 | ||||
| G3WRR | 21 | 66 | 62 | 33 | 156 | 167 | 33 | 0 | 538 | ||||
| G3EUE | 15 | 60 | 80 | 97 | 140 | 63 | 0 | 0 | 455 | ||||
| G3ZPB | 20 | 136 | 77 | 74 | 51 | 0 | 0 | 18 | 376 | ||||
| G4FYF | 40 | 36 | 36 | 28 | 40 | 43 | 40 | 44 | 306 | ||||
| M0LEP | 22 | 14 | 12 | 18 | 24 | 22 | 10 | 44 | 166 | ||||
| G3SRC | 48 | 21 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 57 | 0 | 126 |
There is still no sign of a consistent upturn in sunspot cycle 25 – but it’s always worth a listen!
73, Quin G3WRR (SRCC Leaguemeister)