[3830] IARU W1NN SO CW LP

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                    IARU HF World Championship

Call: W1NN
Operator(s): W1NN
Station: W1NN

Class: SO CW LP
QTH: Ohio
Operating Time (hrs): 24

Summary:
 Band  CW Qs  Ph Qs  Zones  HQ Mults
-------------------------------------
  160:    51            5        4
   80:   178           13        9
   40:   303           18       23
   20:   348           22       36
   15:   308           23       33
   10:    84           14        9
-------------------------------------
Total:  1272    0      95      114  Total Score = 724,394

Club: North Coast Contesters

Comments:

The IARU is one of my favorite contests and I always try to be around for it.  I
like the 24-hour format, the fact that it starts at 8 AM where I live, the large
number of loud HQ stations (that even small stations like mine can easily work),
and the work-everyone format.  The best thing is that one can almost be back to
a normal physical condition by Monday morning.  
	
For this year, I spent quite a bit of time putting up a couple of new wires and
analyzing last year’s results, but of course there is never enough time to do
everything.  Nevertheless, I was probably better prepared for this IARU than
ever before.  My only goal this year was to do better than last year and I
managed to boost the score by over 25%, so I can’t complain.  But it looks
like everyone else may have done the same!

The setup here is a single K3, five separate dipoles mostly between 40-60 feet,
and a small tribander set up on a wobbly 32-foot mast supported at the top by a
rope tied between two trees.   I set this antenna up before major events, fix
it on EU, and take it down afterwards.  Despite its low height, it appears to
outperform the new dipole at 70’ that I put up last week, and it helps me do
a little EU running on 15 and 20.  

I don’t have much to add to the comments about conditions.  15 was very good,
if not quite excellent, during the daytime.  20 never seemed to open completely
to Europe and it was only because the band was open many more hours that my Q
total on 20 surpassed what I had on 15.   Realizing that the average point
value of my 20 meter contacts was a lot higher than my low band contacts, I
stayed there longer than last year, but I may have missed a few EU mults on 80
and 40 as a consequence.  I really need to get SO2R set up to help solve this
problem.

One of the more interesting contacts was the one on 15 meters with 8N3HQ at
1301Z.  I worked three or four other JA stations on 15 in the more “normal”
2200Z hour, but they were apparently just the big stations like JR1AIB. 
Conditions were not good enough for the 100 watt dipole/tribander crowd in JA
to make it into W8 land.  I never heard a single JA on 20 and the few I heard
on 40 were so fluttery that the west coast was having trouble working them, so
I didn’t even bother calling.  But NZ and VK were booming in and I managed to
work both on four bands, a first for me.  A welcome trend I noticed this year is
increased activity from SA.  Thanks to WH6M, Hawaii was not hard to work, but I
never heard a single KL7.  A final highlight of this year’s contest was being
called by EI and PY on 160.  

As many have pointed out, the ops at NU1AW/9 and W1AW/7 did a great job.  They
were loud and available throughout the contest.  I worked the former on six
bands (along with VE1RGB and KZ5D) but somehow missed W1AW/7 on 10. 

Last year, my final score was higher than my claimed score, so evidently
Win-test slightly miscalculates IARU scores.  I hope the same thing happens
this year!

Win-test also says that 64% of my contacts were with NA and only 27% with EU. 
I’m sure this is not a mistake.  Such is life as a peanut whistle in Ohio.  

Thanks to everyone and I hope to see you next time.

73, Hal W1NN (also 7J1AAI)
Medina, Ohio


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