IARU HF World Championship

[wmhein at aol.com]

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 at 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.