2002 IARU Contest
W1AW/5 ARRL Headquarters Station
Location - Central Texas (Austin, Texas area)
CW Phone
Total
Band QSOs Points QSOs Points QSOs
Points Mults
160 177 375 156 296 333
671 11
80 329 771 444 1048 773
1819 27
40 824 2545 760 1778 1584
4323 55
20 1594 5966 2319 7522 3913
13488 87
15 1274 4766 1585 5339 2859
10105 92
10 402 1098 467 1277 869
2375 39
Total 4600 15521 5731 17260 10331
32781 311
Claimed Score: 32,781 x 311 = 10,194,891
This past year has been a busy one here in Central Texas while we prepared
for W1AW/5. Though we were given the W1AW/5 assignment over 3 years ago,
the planning got started in seriousness a year ago immediately after the
2001 IARU.
Six of the premier Central Texas stations agreed to participate - K5NA,
K5TR, N5CQ, N5TW, NX5M, and W5KFT. Each of these stations could have been a
powerhouse on any of the bands or modes but the assignments were:
K5NA - 80M CW, 40M CW, & 15M SSB.
K5TR - 80M SSB & 20M SSB
N5CQ - 10M CW
N5TW - 160M CW & 20M CW.
NX5M - 160M SSB & 10M SSB.
W5KFT - 40M SSB & 15M SSB
W5XD wrote a special version of WriteLog for use by the headquarters
stations. Basically the new version allowed us to connect to a central
Internet server that fed QSOs back to all the W1AW/5 sites in real-time.
Each site could always tell what QSOs and mults each of the other band/mode
sites needed. The software also fed the frequencies of the radios back to
everyone to allow each station to move QSOs to other bands easily.
We had a total of about 15 computers set up at all the sites and each ended
up with the same QSO and multiplier numbers at the end of the contest. The
software was really awesome.
The 24 hours of the IARU were noisy because Central Texas was being hit
with wave after wave of thunderstorms. This condition caused high QRM on
all the bands and especially affected the low bands. The thunderstorms had
been occurring for several days before the contest and there was a lot of
flooding in the area. But no W1AW/5 sites were affected by flooding. The
rain static and thunderstorms were another matter.
The thunderstorms forced the N5TW, NX5M, & W5KFT sites to shut down at
different times during the contest as thunder cells passed by. Since the
logging system was real-time and current at all the sites, it was possible
for other sites to start working the vacated band/modes almost immediately
after the affected stations were shut down. A lot of cell phone calls were
made to coordinate this. Later the band/modes were switched back to the
original stations.
Our goal was to beat the old W1AW/p record set by W1AW/4 in 2000. However,
10 meters just didn't have much in the way of good conditions here and we
fell a little short. With sun spots going down, the W1AW/4 record may stand
for a few years. Our secondary goal was to beat NU1AW and the other
headquarters stations. But I haven't heard any other official HQ scores yet.
All the stations owners and operators had a great time doing this. It was
great fun.
Thanks to the K1ZZ and the ARRL for allowing us to do W1AW/5 in this
contest. Also thanks to W5XD for his work developing his terrific software
to support our effort and to AB5K for the special telnet node used
exclusively by all the W1AW/5 stations.
There will be more detailed information and breakdowns of the W1AW/5 effort
available on the net very soon.
73, Richard - K5NA
k5na@texas.net
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