DARC 24Mhz Challenge Results

The Contest

The Dragon Amateur Radio Club 24MHz Challenge started on the 1st November 2024 and ran until the 30th November 2024. The aim of the challenge was to encourage club members to get active on the 24MHz band, with a little friendly rivalry. Of course this was not a formal contest so any QSO members had whether it was a good old natter, or a 59 and 73 ‘rubber stamp’ QSO, they all counted. To add to the interest there was a simple set of rules and a scoring system to encourage members to not only work as many QSOs they wished, but to challenge members to work as many different countries as possible.

24MHz Challenge Rules
• 1st until 30th November
• Make as many contacts as possible on the 12m 24MHz band (You can work the same station more than once
• All modes: voice / CW / Digi
• Two power categories: 1) 25 Watts 2) 100 Watts
•You must use a homebrew aerial or aerials.
•Scoring: 1 point per QSO multiplied by the number of DXCC worked.

For example: 103 QSO x 15 DXCC = 1545 points

The Results

There were only five logs submitted, but none the less it was great to see so many QSOs being made.

100 Watt category
1st Marc Bloore MW0PNC (1)
2nd Stewart Rolfe GW0ETF (2)
3rd Brian Davies GW4KAZ (3)
(1)Marc Bloore used 100 Watts into a homebrew half wave dipole.
(2) Stewart Rolfe used 100 Watt CW
(3) Brian Davies used 100 Watts SSB into a homebrew 2 element cubical quad at 6m AGL

25Watt category
1st Ian Capon GW0KRL (1)
2nd Simon Taylor MW0NWM (2)
(1)Ian Capon used a maximum of 10 Watts using the FT4 & FT8 datamodes, into a homebrew close coupled resonant dipole for 17m and 12m, at a height of 20 feet AGL.
(2) Simon Taylor used 25 Watts SSB with a homebrew half wave dipole at 7m AGL.

• The 100Watt category winner Marc Bloore sent in the following information about his contacts:
• Number of DXCC outside of Europe: 28
• Most DXCC Worked in Europe: Italy (x12)
• Most DXCC Worked outside of Europe: Brazil (x6)
• Callsign Worked the Most Often: YL2LW Latvia (x5)
• Farthest DXCC Worked: 3G7X Chile (7165 miles)
  DXpedition Worked:
• Burkina Faso XT2MD
• Namibia V55LA
• Sao Tome & Principe S9Z 
• Sierra Leone 9L5A