IARU HF World Championship
Call: W1AW/4
Operator(s): K7SV K4GM K4EC WA4PGM N2YO N3UA KE3X K4IA NR4M N4CW W0UCE K4QPL
N4GU N1LN NC4S N4PD W2YE K8GU K0ZR KU1T W0YR KU1T K3ZM N4DJ K3RV NN3V W4NF W4RM
K50F K4RG NO4N W7IY N4RV
Station: W1AW/4
Class: Headquarters HP
QTH: VA, NC
Operating Time (hrs): 24
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs Zones HQ Mults
-------------------------------------
160: 183 20 10 21
80: 614 408 24 35
40: 1157 979 33 52
20: 1506 1613 46 54
15: 873 749 34 51
10: 298 473 18 18
-------------------------------------
Total: 4631 4242 165 231 Total Score = 9,418,068
Club: Potomac Valley Radio Club
Comments:
******* VERY LONG ******
** A big 'thank you' to Dave, K1ZZ and the ARRL for allowing PVRC to use W1AW/4
and NU1AW/3 during this contest.
Comments from various W1AW/4 stations
15m SSB from N4RV
Ops: NN3W, N4RV, K3RV
The 15SSB crew at N4RV also had a great time despite the lackluster band
conditions. Special thanks to Stu for setting up the network, which
contributed greatly to the sensation of being a part of One Team! And kudos
of course to Steve for his overall leadership.
160m CW and SSB from K3ZM
Ops: K3ZM and N4DJ
From K3ZM:
Several EU HQ stations were readable before sunset but, as usual, they could
not yet hear us. Once darkness settled on the East Coast, we were able to work
EU fairly well for July in Virginia. QRN was bearable for a summer evening. We
managed 21 HQ stations, the great majority of which were in EU. Owing to the
point structure of this contest (and the lack of WRTC participants on 160),
there is very little activity on this band. The only reason to go to 160 is to
nab a few HQ multipliers.
We worked EU HQ mults through search and pounce and running. Running was
facilitated by the fact that the HQ stations presumably had the spots.
Two big highlights were when Don nabbed LU and PY.
It got very slow toward 0800 with a five hour. Still, we loved it.
Many thanks to the higher band operators and to N1MM for telling us in advance
what the exchange was for those weak EU's. But we would have been able to copy
nearly all of them
From N4DJ:
I worked the 160 meter band with Peter, K3ZM, as W1AW/4. Had a great time!
It was a real treat in more ways than one. I remember my first QSO with W1AW
and the treasured QSL card I received in early 1962. After over 50 years, I got
to use that call.
The second treat was to be able to operate with Peter,K3ZM, from his
"World Class" 160 meter station. Working DX on 160 in the summer is
quite a challenge, but we were hearing Europe quite well before sunset and it
was not long before they could hear us. Apparently quite well from Peters
fantastic location.
Late in the contest, I kept wondering where was South America (Isn't it winter
down there?) and I would keep switching the RX antenna that way. I got
especially serious at their sunrise and finally was able to work two South
Americans.
Although the activity was a bit low on 160, we had some "good" hours
and some really slow hours. During the slow hours, we had time to watch what
the other stations were working, thanks to the networked computers.
There was one time that we typed the wrong zone for a W9 and before we could
edit the log the other PVRC stations were working them so fast the QSO with the
wrong zone scrolled right off the screen! Trying to click on that log entry to
fix it was next to impossible. I suppose there must be a way to freeze the log,
but since I never had a need to do that before, I had no clue.
We did work over 200 stations and that effort made me remember the 160 contests
of the 60's when 200 plus QSOs was as good as you could expect over a two night
period in the winter! Back then, I never thought I would see 200 Qs in July!
Many thanks to Peter, K3ZM, for having me at his station, and to all the PVRC
guys, both at the W1AW/4 and NU1AW/3 stations, who made this happen.
73 from the team at VPN station number 1.
10CW at K4VV
Operators: K0ZR, N4PD, NC4S, W2YE, K8GU, W0YR
What a slog!
We just spent LOTs of hours in the chair and pulled out every possibility. We
have the ability to use ALL the 10M ants at once and much of the time, we did
this. That meant 8/8/8 to the west, 5/5 to the northeast or to AF and, a low
5-el yagi pointing to Carib and northern SA. When we'd got an answer, we would
switch to the best ant for that caller. In this way we got calls from several
directions at once. That would not have happened, given the crummy conditions
if we'd just beamed, say, west.
Biggest thrill was getting an answer from a JA, longpath. And, the biggest
disappointment was that a WB4 kept calling over the JA, so we were never able
to get the last letter of his call. He left in frustration. We did get called
by a very strong ZL3TE.
Only a few EU stations, many Carib and South America. Everyone's head hurts.
SOAPBOX FOR 40M SSB IN IARU W1AW/4
40m SSB from K4VV
OPS: NC4S, N4PD, W2YE, K8GU, K0ZR, KU1T, W0YR
Amazing teamwork by this group, operating the K4VV station.
In a pre-contest checklist run-through on Friday we found that the feedline to
the top yagi of the 4/4 40 M OWA yagi stack was open. We called a team member
who probably would have climbed the 140' tower and fixed it, but he was in NC
visiting his father, so that left us with a hastily-erected dipole at 25' and a
4 el yagi fixed on EU.
Well, we lucked out. We were able to hold freq to EU, worked everything out to
W6/W7 and KH6s. Sunday morning, a loud VK7 called US!
15m CW from N1LN:
Ops: W0UCE, K4QPL, N4GU, N1LN
Jack, W0UCE, Jim, K4QPL, Mike, N4GU and Bruce, N1LN, gathered at Bruce’s QTH
to give out the ARRL W1AW/4 multiplier on 15 meter CW during this year’s
running of the IARU contest.
A big THANKS to the ARRL and to Steve, NR4M, for giving us the opportunity to
make this possible.
Even though 15 meters never really opened up, we had a fun time and had some
decent rates working a mix of NA, EU, and SA with the occasional ASIA, PAC and
Africa call signs popping in.
The VPN (THANKS STU) that connected all of the W1AW/4 stations together added
to the fun. We were able to see the progress everyone was making, the
frequencies to pass stations to and also enjoyed the real time chat that N1MM
offers. (Late Saturday night and early Sunday morning the chat feature
utilization increased in an inverse relationship to rate)
Going into the weekend, one of our concerns was the always present threat of
thunder storms. Fortunately, we only had to shut down once, but it was Saturday
afternoon during the last hour of the decent band opening.
When we shut down our rates were in the low to mid-100s and we were actually
ahead of 20cw in both Qs and points. When we came back on after about 45
minutes of down time, our max rates never went above 60 for the rest of the
event and 20cw was so far ahead of us we couldn’t even see their tail
lights.
As with all ham radio outings at 'Camp LN', as the station is now called, in
addition to ham radio we pay special attention to the culinary delights. This
time was no exception.
To start with, lunch consisted of Merchant Marine Burgers, fries and a
selection of drinks. If you don’t know what a Merchant Marine Burger is, well
�" each one was ½ lb of ground beef formed into 2 thin patties. Then a
slice of onion and a slice of cheese and some spicy mustard is added between
them. Seal the edges well so the cheese doesn’t melt out during cooking and
BBQ. They were enjoyed by all.
About 6:30pm Chef Archie arrived to make us an outstanding dinner consisting of
Chicken Cordon Bleu, served with a chilled fresh vegetable salad, warm Italian
bread and of course your choice of wine. For some reason the flow of the wine
continued well after dinner.
When the final bell rang the 15 cw team was able to contribute 873 Qs to this
year’s IARU combined score for the W1AW/4 outing.
73,
Jack, Jim, Mike and Bruce
80cw from N4CW.
OPS: N4CW
Interesting experience. With backward foresight I would have
definitely asked for help from PVRC/NC - but figured 80M would be a
QRN disaster that d/n justify the 100Mi trip down here. Wrong, the
noise level was not that bad.
Contrasting to hosting W1AW/4 several years ago things seemed somewhat
different. Perhaps having a 4L wire yagi -and- 4sq up on the first
effort made the difference but the pileups from Eu were larger on the
earlier effort.
It is also possible that activity dropped due to lousy solar condx and
(possibly) the solar cycle incentivizing the higher bands.
Be that as it might, I found the smaller pileups to make it easier to
play point-n-click to maximize multipliers. Additionally, huge pileups
can make it tough to maintain the all important rate-o-meter.
Zero JA. Called by ZL, no VK. W6 was loud, I never felt that much
difficulty in copying stations (what a break the gods of QRN provided
!). As to be expected, the 4square stayed on Eu until after midnight.
Since I had a night time band, spent some time as NY4A on daytime
bands. Surprised to work big Europeans on 10M, 15M was open but not
what I would describe as 'wide'. 20M seemed closer to normal. Really
not able to get on 40.
A big thanks to W7IY who assumed the thankless job of making VPN M/M work.
Stu did the heavy lifting and forwarded us configuration files that
had the actual configuration specifics.
For folks looking at a VPN M/M, it worked really well (N1MM). I was
surprised there was not a problem with sync, but all seemed seamless
including a lot of banter using the Broadcast feature.
This was so much fun that PVRC/NC is doing W1AW/4 a different way next
year in the ARRL centennial ;-)
Our schedule (for NC) will be on http://centennial.n4af.net
With CAVEAT that I QRT'd after sunrise and apparently missed some
later qsos, here is a SH5 breakout of W1AW/4.
Steve - if you read this, could you forward final ADIF, so I can update ?
http://n4af.net/stats/2013%20IARU-HF%20W1AW_4/index.htm
73, Howie N4AF
20CW and 40CW from NR4M:
Ops: K7SV, K4GM, K4EC, WA4PGM, N2YO, N3UA, KE3X, K4IA, NR4M
Things seemed to work well here. Did find that we now have a new noise source
that wasn't here before, but fortunately it's sounds due south of the station.
Conditions were OK on 20 and 40. I've seen them better, but surely have seen
them worse.
Plenty of food, as usual, with grilled burgers for lunch and a sandwich platter
to take care of our stomach's during the night.
K4GM and I broke out the Rum and Coke on Saturday evening, while everyone else
was a bit more focused.
I was really relieved that almost everyone that wanted to get on our VPN, was
able to. Only AA4NC had technical issues that kept him from joining us. Stu
did an outstanding job in the weeks before researching our needs and getting it
all set up. He made something potentially difficult, very easy. Round of
applause for W7IY!
Thanks to all for working W1AW/4 on all available bands. Worked many on 12
band/modes.
73 de Steve, NR4M and the entire 'Goat Farm' crew.
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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