I went to QF46pu with the intention of working VHF and above, however after the first hour of calling and finding nothing and hearing nothing, (except for VK2LE/p on 146.500, but they could not hear me). Dave VK2JDS was tuning around 40metres and found lots of stations calling CQ Contest, so I started working the contest on 40metres, it was great fun, lots of strong signals, easy to work them. There were some serious stations out there, but also many casual contesters who liked a bit of a chat, which I was very obliging with.
I was not doing the contest seriously, just give out some numbers. There seemed like there were many club groups and family groups, one op had his daughters doing the CQ calls while he made the contacts, so I was surprised by the number of young operators, both genders present, some of which had picked up the contest bug and operating very professionally and proficiently, which was great to hear.
Over the 24 hour period I racked up 50 contacts, in between other projects, while realistically just having a bit of fun in the contest. I was operating under my other callsign VK2ABP, running the Icom 756 Pro2 into a 80metre horizontal wire loop, strung out among the trees.
Now that I had fun on a HF contest, I think I need to have a go at the RD Contest in August. I think I leave the VHF and above for the WIA VHF-UHF Field Day Contests.
