2021 Contesting Results

2021 contesting. Let's just say there is room to improve

Contesting and me

I didn't set out to do much contesting last year. In fact, I didn't really see the point of contesting. It just sort of, drew me in, and before you know it, I've got a certificate showing my performance... Even stranger, I had a good time doing it.

It all started when I picked up an old TR-751E 2m All-mode transceiver. It really is a great old radio. The best part is that it has SSB and I wanted to test out the SSB capability. Luckily enough, in Bristol there is a fair bit of 2m SSB going on. So much that I called CQ and got a reply. But it turns out, once per month, there is a 2m contest and lots of SSB to respond to... This got me into 144MHz UKAC.

UKAC

144MHz UKAC is part of the wider UK Activity Contests. It last 2.5 hours on the first Tuesday of the month and is an any mode contest. The 2022 rules can be found here.

In 2021 I entered in August (5 points), September (15 points) and November from the new QTH (5 points), and got an overall 410th place and a certificate (see below). You can see my results here.

FMAC

There is an associated FM only contest that services as an introduction to contesting call the 144MHz FMAC. This runs for 50 minutes in the hour before UKAC, so I tended to do both contests back to back on a Tuesday evening. The 2022 rules can be found here.

In 2021 I entered in October (71 points) and November (117 points), and got an overall 82nd place in the 50W section and a certificate (see below). You can see my results here.

2022 Contesting Plans

For 2022, I will carry on doing both UKAC and FMAC on 2m and try and improve both my techniques and my setup. I'll talk more about the setup improvements in my 2022 goals post, but I want to get a better antenna for 2m at my QTH and a better 2m portable setup.