The RSGB Commonwealth Contest runs from 10:00 on Sat 9th March to 10:00 Sun 10th March. You will hear participants calling CQ BERU (British Empire Radio Union). This is a CW contest in which the participants must be in commonwealth countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Ghana, The Gambia, Grenada to name a few. A full list of Commonwealth Call Areas may be found at https://www.rsgbcc.org/hf/information/codes.shtml. Stations from those areas may also work Headquarter stations including those from their own call area. The contest details may be found at https://www.rsgbcc.org/hf/rules/2019/rberu.shtml.
Bob G3PJT maintains an interesting site at https://berucontest.wordpress.com/ with the latest news about participants, especially those travelling to some far-flung part of the commonwealth. Our own Don G3XTT will be operating as C56DF from The Gambia. I’m sure he would be delighted to work as many RADARC members as possible!
One of the advantages of this contest is that it is easier for UK stations to work DX because you are not competing with most of Europe or the USA. Saturday afternnoon is worth trying for African stations on 20m. You should also be able to work many Canadians on 20m from mid-afternoon to mid-evening, and on 40m during the evening. It’s worth getting up on Sunday morning to operate between about 06:00 and 07:30 as you’re likely to work VK and ZL on 40m and possibly 80m. There’s a very noticeable lift around UK sunrise that coincides with sunset in ZL.
Simon Watson