[CQ-Contest] First IARU HF Championship

[Tim Shoppa]

A correction thanks to N2IC's QST archive: from 1977-1986, ITU Zones (but
not HQ's) were mults per band.

Boy it'll be nice when ARRL's digital QST archive and contests dot arrl dot
org come back online! Sorely missed here.

Tim N3QE

On Wed, Jul 10, 2024 at 8:45 AM Tim Shoppa <tshoppa at gmail.com> wrote:

> The first 24-hour "IARU HF" was 1987. For 10 years before that, it was the
> "IARU Radiosport", allowing 36 of 48 hours as well as VHF activity to count.
>
> Quoting my brief history in my July 2023 CQ Contesting column:
>
> "The deep origins of this July contest can be traced to a one-off
> predecessor, the 1976 ARRL Bicentennial
> Celebration. This 48-hour event was held in late July 1976. It was hugely
> popular, with 2500 logs
> submitted; US stations celebrated their history by using as their
> exchange, a number corresponding to
> the order of their state’s entry into the union. There were no
> multipliers, but action was livened up by
> allowing contacts on both voice and another mode (most commonly CW, but
> also allowed were SSTV
> and RTTY.) US stations were encouraged to use their special bicentennial
> prefixes.
>
>
> From 1977 through 1986, the IARU Radiosport Championship continued the
> lively July contest tradition,
> settling down on the second weekend in July. Stations operated for up to
> 36 hours of the 48 hour
> weekend and ITU zones were the exchange for all entrants. There were no
> multipliers, but DX activity
> was motivated by awarding 5 points for intercontinental QSOs, as opposed
> to just a single point for
> working stations in your own zone. VHF activity on both the 6 Meter and 2
> Meter bands was also
> allowed.
>
>
> A major revamp took place beginning in 1987. The new contest, called “The
> IARU HF World
> Championship”, began the current 24-hour period, and introduced not just
> ITU zones but IARU HQ
> stations as multipliers. The IARU HF contests was one of the last contests
> to include a category for
> assisted operators using telnet clusters for spotting, finally adopting
> the “Single Op Unlimited” category
> in 2015."
>
> Tim N3QE
>