I have never been a contester! My station has only ever been a ‘little-pistol’. The closest to a contest that has ever appealed to me were the 144.100 Mhz ‘scrambles’ held in Melbourne, where the aim was to work as many stations as possible on two metres-sideband in a set time-window, usually an hour. I participated in these from my QTH in Greensborough during the late 1970s and early 1980s as VK3BJE. They were held on a Sunday night and were a lot of fun. My IC202, which I still own, was a very little ‘pistol’, putting out three watts pep, and later 10 watts pep when I added the matching amplifier. The other reason for not participating in contests was work. I worked long and often irregular hours through my career. But I also thought I would not be competitive.

However that all changed recently. In August last year I joined AREG, the Amateur Radio Experimenters’ Group. I am possibly their oldest member!

Well over the weekend of 9th and 10th February the 2019 WPX RTTY Contest was held. Grant, VK5GR, knew of my interest in RTTY and invited me to join him at his suburban shack for part of the contest and to participate. Also Theo, VK5IR, was involved as part of the team. Theo and I had different times. I was at Grant’s place on the Saturday night.

Well the preliminary results are out:
33  VK5GR………….608,400 (VK5GR VK5BJE VK5IR)

and we could be winners in the M1 category.

1 VK5GR………..608,400 (VK5GR VK5BJE VK5IR)

2 YE1C…421.040

3 DX9EVM…12,816