[SEDXC] IARU HF Contest This Weekend

[John Laney]

Hello friends:

The SECC memorial club call, W4AN, will be QRV in IARU HF this weekend 
from the QTH of Tom Rauch, W8JI, near Barnesville, GA.  I will SO AB HP 
probably CW and SSB using my new Extra Class privileges (never fear, I 
will be in the General Class bands too).  Most of you know that the 
previous holder of W4AN was a founder of SECC.  Bill Fisher, W4AN 
formerly KM9P and also K4AAA, and I operated many contests together at 
Dr. Hugh Valentine's QTH in Loganville and then at Bill's station in the 
mountains above Dahlonega.  We also operated 160M contests with Tom and 
with K3LR at Tom's QTH.

Bill and I were WRTC partners in San Francisco in 1996 (silver medal) 
and in Helsinki, Finland in 2002.  This weekend during IARU HF, the 2010 
running of WRTC is being held near Moscow.  I didn't qualify to be a 
competitor this time and they didn't pick me to be a referee, so I will 
be back at home for the first WRTC since the first one in Seattle in 1990.

So, I will be using Bill's call as a memorial to him and I hope I can 
make a good showing of it with the aid of Tom's fabulous station.

Hope all of you who can will get on the air and make as many contacts as 
possible this weekend.  All stations count for points including your own 
ITU zone and your own country.  The WRTC competitors will be using calls 
that begin R3 and then have a second number and another letter (for 
example:  R31A.  They will be running 100 watts.  Please work as many of 
them as you can.

The exchange for this contest is RS(T) + ITU zone.  For all of us in 
this part of the country, the zone is 08.  So 5908 or 59908 will be the 
standard.  HQ stations, such as W1AW, etc., will send RS(T) + HQ 
abbreviation.  For example, W1AW will send 59(9) ARRL and NU1AW will 
send 59(9) IARU.  You can work each station once on cw and once on phone 
on all bands 160, 80, 40, 20, 15, and 10M.  We have been having good Es 
openings on 15 and 10M, so don't overlook those bands.  Multipliers are 
HQ stations and ITU zones once per band (not per band and mode).  I 
believe CW and Phone QSOs count the same for this contest.

So, get on the air Saturday 12Z (8 AM EDT) to 12Z Sunday (8 AM EDT), 
have fun and help out all the serious contesters and others who would 
like to have your call in their logs on each band and mode.

Unfortunately, the multi-single op by SECC members from the WW4LL QTH 
has been cancelled due to antenna failure of the higher StepIr.  But, 
Fred will be QRV as a single op part time using the lower antenna.

73, John.