Congratulations to Gerard VK2IO

While we in SOTA don’t have a lot of time for contests and contesters, it’s nice to see when “one of our own” (i.e. an active SOTA activator) shows 'em how it’s done!

It has just been announced on the WIA Broadcast that Gerard VK2IO won the Single Op, QRP-Mixed section of the Remembrance Day contest.

Well Done Gerard !! :drum: :boom: :confetti_ball:

Ed DD5LP / VK2JI.

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Yep, Well done Gerard and had a great score too.

John VK6NU

Hi John,
Surprisingly no entries for SO QRP CW???

73 Ed.

cough

Well congrats to your teams efforts as well Andy - I remember VHF FD from (oh too many years) ago when I was a member of the Hull and District ARS and we won the whole blooming event - all bands!! That was only one year as propagation was good to us (and more importantly not to them Bl+++dy southerners) most years we came mid table.

I’m sure you’ll agree it was a really good effort from Gerard as a single op station and QRP to win the RD.

73 Ed.

Ours was a team event, single-op is always more of an achievement.

I read those results in the Sept-Oct edition of AR. Congrats to Gerard, well done.

As the contest was in mid August (yes, 2018), it is amazing that the results have been compiled and assessed in time for publication in the Sept-Oct AR magazine. This is partly due to a good log submission system, a standardised log format and an automated log checking process implemented by the contest manager Alan VK4SN. It is quite astounding. We used to wait many months for the results.

The AR magazine editor and his staff of volunteers has to be recognised too, production deadlines must have been well and truly compressed to achieve this. And the editor is another “of our own”, Peter VK3PF. Just amazing…

Thanks for the kind words!

This is the biggest VK contest on the calendar and is enjoyable to operate because of the activity it generates. It was done as a park activation - alas not a SOTA one due to the cleared area required to set up the antennas.
With only 5 Watts available it is amazing how many stations can be worked even at the bottom of the solar cycle.
Photos can be found here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/bYjV5DmdogQbGxwB9

Thanks Peter VK3ZPF for producing a contest version of VK port-a-log that many of you are using on your activations. It was used exclusively for logging.

Also echo Andrew VK1DA’s comments - great to see the results being processed and published so quickly.

Cheers,
Gerard - VK2IO

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Congrats Gerard!

One more thing we have in common…(the other being our s2s contacts)…

Hope we can work again some day on sota…maybe in a QRP contest!

73

Pete
WA7JTM