Well----it was a blast.... My first IARU ever, but not my last. Got back in
ham radio in September of 96 (after a lapse of 25 years) and got hooked by
the Cal QSO Party. Since then I've done CW SS, A few QSO parties,CW Sprint,
CW NAQP, ARRL CW DX (as WK6C), played with CQ WW CW, and did a part time
multi-single with N6HC (as N6HC) in CW WPX. It's been a great learning
curve....and lots of fun. I had originally planned a real effort as a CW
only entry (time wise if not band wise) for IARU as a test of how well I
could do and how much my skills had improved. (not out to win, but just to
set a new personal best for 24 hours with my station).
Unfortunately, some unexpected work requirements came up a couple of weeks
ago and what I had hoped was going to be a serious effort turned into just a
part time mini-effort. I was able to be on only for the first two hours,
then not again until about 2300Z. My plan was to just go straight through
the night and crash at contest end at 0500 local....but....after a long
week, then starting Saturday at 0430, and teaching for 6 or 7 hours, my body
finally just gave up at 0100 local Sunday AM. (I actually fell asleep
calling CQ with my finger on the return key, maybe TR needs something like
what the railroads used to call a "deadman pedal" to automatically shut off
CQ's after a certain period of time!).
So I decided to catch a couple of hours sleep and then get up and do the
last two hours of the contest in the hopes of pretty good Asian runs on 40
or 20. Great plan, not so great execution!! I never even heard the alarm go
off at 0300! At one point it was 0120 and I was turning off the light, and
the next thing I knew, my shetland sheepdog (and 2nd op) Riley was
suggesting it was time for a walk and breakfast at 0730!
So altogether I put in a total of about 9 hours. The focus was on 20 and 40.
I had hoped that 15 would provide at least a few Q's and mults, but every
time I checked it, there was nothing there. I'll be most interested to see
if anyone else here on the left coast was able to mine it for some points. I
also had hopes for a temporary 80 meter antenna that I strung up on Friday
evening (a full size G5RV)....that wasn't to be either. First of all, it
didn't radiate worth a damn, and secondly, it filled the shack with
sufficient RF that the computer went crazy and even started sending CW by
itself....that kind of problem I don't need!
The set up is a TS-940S barefoot, fully interfaced with a 386/33, running
TRLog V6.05 for contests. Antennas are a 40 meter dipole and 2 20M dipoles
at about 10 meters. My condo association looks with great horror upon
"antennas" so stealth is important. However, I am fortunate in that my qth
has pretty good terrain. I'm 600 feet above sea level and about 1.5 miles
back from the Pacific. I'm on a ridge top and have excellent take off angles
to EU and VK, pretty good angles to JA and north Asia. South America is my
only real challenging direction.
Basic results:
Band Q's Pts Mults Zones Pts/Q Q's/Mult
80 3 5 0 2 1.66
40 107 305 4 15 2.85 5.63
20 154 542 12 17 3.58 5.31
TOTAL SCORE = 42,600
After the first hour or so, S&P rates hung right around 30 to 35 with a
couple of dips into the 20's as the evening got late. With 100 watts and
dipoles, running is the stuff of dreams, but this time, late in the evening,
I could get the rate to 55 or so for short periods on 40. (20.5% of Q's and
2 mults came from running)
What somewhat suprised me was the distribution by continent, given low power
and dipoles....the number of EU stations was unexpectedly high for me....
40 20
------ ------
NA 87 80
SA 3 0
EU 1 58
AF 0 0
AS 10 13
OC 6 3
The top 6 zones were 08(82), 07(36), 06(36), 28(20), 45(17), and 29(14).
Being new to west coast propagation, I'm still learning to understand the
annual cycle of how dx propagation changes. But if I had been asked ahead of
time I certainly would have expected a much larger percentage of Q's out of
JA. Never dreamed that the total EU stations would be more than double the
number of Asians from here.
So a summary---- I went in wanting at least 200 Q's and 50 mults. Those were
accomplished, so I'm happy about that. Perhaps more important to me is that
I realized after the fact that I did just about the same number of Q's in
IARU that I did in CW SS, but I operated fewer than half the number of hours
in IARU compared with SS. (9 versus 19). So I can really see some progress
during the past 8 months. Oh and the bonus was a new country with R1FJL for
# 165......
It was great fun this time----and I sure enjoy working old friends (old
measured in numbers of contests) and new friends that I've made ragchewing
with dx over the past few months, again in the contest environment. I really
enjoy being in the position of an old dog learning new tricks, and my
heartfelt thanks to all of you out there who have provided the Q's, the
help, and the advice that helps me get better with each passing contest.
73 and Cheers
de W1HIJ e e
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