IARU HF Championship
Call: W6ROD
Operator(s): N6DE,W6LD,K6ST,N7MH,W7SW,N6EM,W6ROD,KE6ZZS
Station: W6YX
Class: M/S Power: HP
QTH:
Operating Time (hrs): 24
Summary:
Band CW Qs Phone Qs Mults
--------------------------------------------
160: 0 4 2
80: 37 12 8
40: 256 0 32
20: 520 350 74
15: 230 174 55
10: 0 16 11
--------------------------------------------
Total: 1043 556 182 = 979,342
Club: NCCC
Comments:
Equipment:
Run station - Yaesu FT1000MP, Alpha 87A
S&P station - Yaesu FT1000MP MkV, Alpha 78
Spotting/S&P station - Icom 761, Alpha 78
Spotting station - Kenwood TS850
Antennas:
10m - Telrex 6-el monobander at 70'
15m - Telrex 6-el monobander at 70', Hygain 155CA at 25'
20m - KLM 6-el monobander at 60', Hygain 205CA at 40'
40m - KLM 4-el monobander at 60', Cushcraft 40-2CD at 50'
80m - Inv-Vee, Dipole
160m - Inv-Vee
10/15/20 - KLM KT34XA
10/15/20/40 - Mosley Pro67A
The Stanford ARC and Northern California Contest Club conspired with Rod,
W6ROD, to activate his callsign from the W6YX location for the IARU contest as
a Multi-Single using Rod's rare R2 multiplier as a member of the Region 2
Executive Committee. Overall a good time was had by all. This was one contest
where we actually had more operators and spotting stations available than were
needed because of the 10-minute rule and mult station prohibition. Many thanks
to Rusty, W6OAT, for arranging use of Rod's callsign.
Rod hiked the mile (and 1000 foot elevation rise) up to our shack in the
Stanford foothills and actually operated the station for a short while. I
won't go into details of his operating. Those who know Rod can ask him
personally about his IARU contest experience :).
We had been expecting Jack, N6EM, to show up to help with spotting. He worked
us from his home and said he'd be coming up in a half-hour or so. We expected
a phone call from Jack so that somebody could drive down and let him in at the
gate to drive up. Much later we did get a call - Jack had decided it was a
nice day and he would hike up, only he was deceived by some research
log-periodics on an adjacent hill (nice antennas, but not part of W6YX) and
came up from the wrong entrance for a 2-mile walk. Jack had borrowed another
hiker's cell phone to make the call and said he could now see our towers. We
were a bit worried about 80-year-old Jack hiking that far on a warm day, but
when he finally arrived it was not Jack, but the young hiker that loaned him
the cell phone, who immediately asked for some water because he was overheated.
The remaining comments are from Dean, N6DE, who was running a swap meet for the
first half of the contest and showed up in the early evening. - Mike, N7MH
I arrived at around 6pm on Saturday with the eagerly awaited
pizza in hand, and stayed for the remainder of the contest.
During that time, I felt that 20m was definitely where all the action was!
I felt louder on 20m than on any other band - we often got comments
on our 20m signal from all parts of the world! We were spotted 8 times
on DX Summit: 5 of those were on 20m.
R2 multiplier:
The average participant in the IARU contest has no idea what
the R2 multiplier is. We got an amazing amount of questions about
our zone. Ex: "Was that zone 02?" ; "What is your zone?" ; "R2?
Agn pse?" ; "Thanks for the Region 2, now what is your zone required
for the exchange?" ; "?" ; "NR?" ; long pauses after we gave our exchange;
etc, etc, etc. I quickly abandoned saying "Region 2" on SSB.
The one that seemed to work best was "Radio 2". But the confusion
was not limited to SSB - I got lots of "?" and "NR?" on CW. It was
not uncommon to spend 30 seconds sending/resending/explaining what
the hell R2 was/resend again and again. :) Some people never did
understand the concept of R2!
For those in the contest who did understand, they were very happy
to hear from us. Whenever we could not establish a run frequency
on 20m, it was fun to hear the reactions of the Europeans when we
gave them the R2 mult! Instead of the normal TU message, some stations
hammered out a special TU message! One guy sent "TU TU TU."
Others sent "FB R2 TU dit dit." It was fun!
10 minute rule:
For the serious participants in the contest who understood the value
of the R2 mult, they often wanted to move us to other bands. As a M/S
in IARU, we have to stay on one band-mode for 10 minutes. We cannot
move to other bands or modes before that 10 minutes is up.
Many times we were asked to move to a band like 80m. We had to
constantly balance the issue of putting forth a competitive effort for
W6ROD versus trying to be a nice W6ROD host to give people the R2
multiplier as many places as possible. We often told people that
we would be on a certain band-mode in x minutes or at x Zulu.
Sometimes we simply said no, explained the 10 minute rule, and
said that we had been on that band before. Compare being on
80m for 10 minutes, working primarily 1 point QSOs, versus being
on 20m to work 5 point QSOs at a higher rate. There is just
no comparison, but trying to be good hosts for the W6ROD callsign,
we made a very reasonable effort to be on bands like 80m longer
than we should have. Not only is the rule per band, but also
per mode! We contacted W1AW/6 on 160 SSB, and had to decline the
offer to move to 160 CW because a) we had to be on 160 SSB for
9 more minutes, and b) we would have to be on 160 CW for another
10 minutes after that.
There are already comments on 3830 from two other M/S efforts
complaining about the 10 minute rule. After spending a weekend
as a M/S with a rare multiplier, I also felt severly constrained
by this rule. I personally suggest that the ARRL seriously
reconsider this rule for M/S stations in a contest like IARU
where there are mixed modes and multipliers per band.
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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