I just finished my first real attempt at the IARU HF World Championship (I
have made QSOs in past years' contests, but never more than a few hours
messing around with no intent of running up a decent score).
My "stock excuses": propagation seemed only fair, participation only modest,
and I used only one radio (I don't know how anyone can copy CW from two
different radios on two different bands at the same time -- anyone who can do
this deserves the advantage it gives them!). I operated throughout the 24
hour period, taking about two hours worth of breaks for meals, to watch CNN,
etc. Nevertheless I enjoyed myself and have a page full of notes on how to
improve my score next year.
Results:
call: AA6TT
QTH: Zone 7 (south west Colorado)
class: CW only
claimed score: 397,116 points
Band breakdown:
band QSOs multipliers
160m 0 0
80m 84 13
40m 294 24
20m 542 47
15m 122 22
10m 3 2
total 1,045 108
highlights:
* Good 80m propation throughout the Pacific Rim -- worked ZLs, VKs, UA0s,
OA, LU, and many JAs.
* Working SU2MT on 20m (hope he is active from Zone 34 in this year's CQ
contests).
* Working lots of JAs on 40m.
* Working lots of "deep Russians" over the North Pole on 20m (actually, not
all Russian, many stations in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, et al.).
* NA version 8.02 worked flawlessly. I had not used this program for
several years. I am impressed with the current version's features and lack
of bugs. In many respects, I feel NA is superior to CT. If NA only
supported Yaesu transceiver links...
* W1AW ansered my CQ on 4 bands.
* Could actually find "holes" on 20m to call CQ.
lowlights:
* Where were the CY9 and OJ0 DXpeditions which were to be active in the
contest?
* Virtually no activity on 10m. I called about 250 CQs on 10m CW and got
THREE REPLIES! Perhaps the rules should be changed so that we can contact
the Spanish-speaking CBers in the 10m CW segment for contest credit -- I
heard chatting amongst themselves ALL DAY, so there was 28 MHz propagation to
Latin America...
* Whenever I got my QSO rate above 100/hour, no one would answer my CQs for
2 or 3 minutes (some sort of jinx).
* Little Pacific Island activity.
* Virtually no JAs on 15m!!!
* Did not work any Europeans or Africans on 40m.
* Most of the stations I worked on 15m did not move my transceiver's
S-meter.
* Lots of stations gave me their CQ -- not ITU -- zone (in these cases, I
told the other station what his zone should be and logged the correct zone --
was this the proper thing to do???).
* Seemingly light participation from western Europe -- Italy, France, UK, et
al (on the other hand, I worked lotsa Russians and Ukrainians).
* Lost my 160m wire ground plane Friday night before the contest. One of my
black-haired Russian "Romanov" sheep got tangled in a radial and pulled the
entire thing down. I tried running 100 watts on 160m thru an antenna tuner
to my 80m antenna, but was unable to complete any Top Band contacts.
* "HF World Championship" is an inflated, pretentious name for this contest.
The CQ World Wide CW is the Olympic Games of radio contesting, in my
opinion...
I heard N6TV, N6TR and W6YA thoughout the 24 hours and assume they ran up
pretty decent scores in Zone 6. I will curious to see other western USA and
also Zone 7 scores.
73,
Bill, AA6TT
wmhein@aol.com
PS: I have a new "shack" telephone number: 303/883-2415 (contesters/DXers
feel free to call this late at night or early in the morning -- if Heard
Island is on the air, for example -- as the line rings only in my radio room
and does not bother my family). My fax number remains 303/883-2408.
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