[CQ-Contest] ARRL 160 Contest

[Jeff Maass]

>from [David Kopacz] 
>
> As you may be aware, Andy UU4JMG, used the 6Y1V
> contest station in this past weekend's ARRL 160
> contest. I have never operated this contest
> before, not even from 6Y1V.
>
> I am sure many of you worked him as he has over
> 1300 Q's in his log.
>
> I wanted to know how the station performed compared
> with other DX stations in past years so I checked
> both the 2008 and 2007 QST articles for the contest
> results and found that there was hardly any mention
> of DX stations. Except for two Caribbean stations
> that managed to make the top ten competing against
> US stations in the low power and QRP categories,
> and one Australian guy that made one Q, no DX stations
> had printed results.
>
> Needless to say, I have no idea how the station 
> performed in comparison with other DX stations, 
> Caribbean or otherwise, because there is little
> chance for them to make the top ten list in high
> power because there are only have 79 multipliers
> to work.
>
> Why is there not a "results list" of DX stations in
> the articles? Is it somewhere else?
>
> David ~ KY1V

G'day David:

This has been my favorite contest for 35 years, since
my early contesting days at W8LT at Ohio State University,
where we routinely made the box in Multi-Op.

However, ARRL now wants to treat it as a domestic contest,
despite the effort in the early years of trying to encourage
DX participation by emphasizing how important it was to 
the goals of the contest. There has barely been mention of
DX stations who participate in recent years.

Of course, the scoring is different for DX station than 
that for station in the ARRL Sections, so the scores need
to be listed separately. 

Records, including DX scores, have been compiled by N6TR,
and are on the ARRL web site at:
  http://www.arrl.org/contests/results/160records.html 
This listing includes record scores per category in each 
Continent, as well as Overall Records.

I've operated the contest a few times from PJ2T on Curacao,
and my score kept increasing until now I have the SOHP DX
record (222,456-1436-78 in 2007) from 12-degrees North of
the Equator and 1250 miles from the nearest US Mainland 
QSO.

For that effort, I received a certificate which reads:
  "First Place, Single Operator, High Power, Netherlands
   Antilles"

You can see a scan of the certificate at:
   http://www.k8nd.com/PJ2T_ARRL160_Cert_2007_sm.jpg

I identify with Rodney Dangerfield. I'm not planning any
additional ARRL 160 Contest operations, preferring instead
to go down for CQWW 160 CW in January, since the effort
will be recognized if I do well. 

Congratulations to Andy UU4JMG and to you for the fine
finish this year for 6Y7J, which should be a new North
American SOHP DX Record by a wide margin!

Unless something changes, just don't expect any recognition
from ARRL besides a certificate that reads:

  "First Place, Single Operator, High Power, Jamaica"


73,  Jeff K8ND

Station Manager, PJ2T