VHF Field Day 2026 – Unofficial Results Analysis

Introduction

This page is a bit of fun, nothing more. We have no authority and no idea how the “official” ajudication process will proceed. The contest rules require that logs are submitted within 7 days of the contest but the “official” adjudication process takes some time to complete. The Contest Committee do provide headline details of submitted logs once the submission date has closed, and for the dedicated it is possible to undertake some preliminary analysis.

Remember that this is no more than a bit of fun, much like the much loved “swingometer” that used to come out on Election Night to try to predict the outcome of an election based on just the early results. This analysis has no “official” status what so ever and no suggestion, implication or statement is made that it is anything other than a guess of the final outcome, so take this with a pinch of salt.

Participating Stations

This year there were 53 unique callsigns participating in VHF Field Day and 130 logs, giving an average of 2.453 logs/callsign.

The table below shows the disposition of the entries by band and class:

This is a good number of participants, an improvement over recent post-COVID figures.

Our entry is in the Low Power (Typically 25W PEP [10W on 4m]) class. In the table below, a full line highlight indicates a class entry, while a partial highlight indicates a band entry that will be used to determine normalised scores but which is expected to be part of a Mix and Match Class entry. The “claimed” scores by each entrant on each band are as follows:

Results for 50MHz Low Power (Typically 25W PEP [10W on 4m])

Here, is the first oddity of the contest. The station UW8SM has come top, which is a great performance and many congratulations. However, this Ukrainian station managed around 50% as many contacts as the second-best performing station and an average points per QSO that is also 50% above the average for the other participants. This seems odd, admittedly conditions could have been different over central Europe than they were in the UK but the disparity is unsettling.

The submission claims to be in the name of the Amplitude Modulation ARS, a Special Interest Group affiliated with the RSGB. No reason why this isn’t the case, and obviously operating from Ukraine would preclude the use of the AM ARS UK callsign.

The primary issue for us comes from the “normalisation” process. Due to the disproportionally high score by UW8SM, and to put this in perspective in the Restricted Class (with 4 times the power) the highest number of contacts was 109 by Warrington Contest Group and the best Points/QSO was Thornton Cleveleys ARS with 750 and in the Open Class where 1kW is permitted the highest number of contacts was Trowbridge ARC with 151 and the best UK Points/QSO was Cockenzie & Port Seton ARC who managed 781 Points/QSO. Interestingly a Polish station in the open class managed 1664 Points/QSO so maybe conditions were more conducive in Europe than the UK. If the second place group Northern Fells Contest Group were the best scoring group, our “normalised” score would be 402, an improvement of 235 which could be significant in the Class scoring.

Lock Fyne Kippers managed there usual good performance with a small haul of very high value contacts.

Results for 70MHz Low Power (Typically 25W PEP [10W on 4m])

Nothing too untoward here, except for Loch Fyne Kippers who only managed a couple of QSOs but they were astonishingly valuable long distance contacts.

Results for 144MHz Low Power (Typically 25W PEP [10W on 4m])

The Welsh Hereford ARS team worked hard given the conditions to make 132 contacts. Loch Fyne Kippers must be congratulated on yet another high Points/QSO result although it was topped by the English Hereford ARS team.

Our Points/QSO were at the lower end of the data set, in fact we were second from last in terms of Points/QSO ranking on 144MHz. We made up for this by having the second highest number of QSOs in the sample set, so although it felt like a slog at some points in the weekend, we worked harder than most.

The French Callsign for Burton-upon-Trent ARC is noted, we weren’t aware that Burton-upon-Trent extended into France but we’re sure this was all with the agreement of the Club.

Results for 432MHz Low Power (Typically 25W PEP [10W on 4m])

We didn’t participate in the 432MHz band, but have included it for completeness and to establish Class standings.

Results for 1.3GHz Low Power (Typically 25W PEP [10W on 4m])

We didn’t participate in the 1.3GHz band, but have included it for completeness and to establish Class standings.

Low Power (Typically 25W PEP [10W on 4m]) Class Results Using Normalised Scoring

We end in fourth place, but note that were it found that UW8SM had entered the wrong class the additional 235 points would lift us into 2^nd place. It is expected that there will be some logging errors that will cost us some points, but the next closest team, Loch Fyne Kippers, is 255 normalised points behind us (Note, they had a third entry under a separate callsign which is permissible but can’t be easily combined with the assessment we do), so while the gap might be less than is shown we’re not convinced we’ll see a place change as a result of logging errors.

The two Hereford ARS entries we believe are separate. Although Hereford is close to the Welsh border it would be difficult to see a GW and a G operation could be considered as the same operation plus both groups have entered on 2m and their logs are bound to create duplicates.