[CQ-Contest] WRTC2000 Winners

[Richard L. King]

I have to tell this little story about what happened to us at the Dayton 
Hamvention this year.

At the Dayton Contesting Dinner Susan and I had the pleasure of having Dan, 
K1TO, sitting with us at our table. Eventually the conversation got around 
to the WRTC2000 event.

I had some opinions on the subject and I told Dan that it was extremely 
unlikely that he and Jeff would repeat as champions this time. I said that 
I knew both of them were excellent operators but I felt that the many 
variables of station, weather, antennas, location, strategy, and 
propagation always put a degree of luck into the results. And since the 
event had many of the world's top operators, a little luck shift would 
quickly be taken advantage of by others. So I felt there might never be 
repeat champions from one event to the next.

Dan politely listened to my opinion on the subject and finally replied, 
"Well Richard, I am going to take that as a personal challenge".

Now that the event has completed and Dan and Jeff have emerged as winners, 
I am eating my words from the Contest Dinner. There is no doubt in my mind 
that K1TO and N5TJ are the best contesting team in the world. They 
certainly have proven that to me. And I am sure that Dan would have been 
highly motivated for the competition even if I had not made my comments to him.

Also there is also no doubt in my mind that the Slovenian group that put 
together the WRTC2000 event did a GREAT job of equalizing the hardware and 
location variables that might affect the outcome. Their efforts have 
produced the best theater for the competition thus far. It was very well done.

I had to travel out of town on Sunday of the IARU and could only operate 
part-time Saturday evening and Sunday morning local time. But I did manage 
to work 52 of the 53 competing teams. It was great fun chasing the guys 
from this end.

73, Richard
k5na at texas.net


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