IARU HF Championship

I think the last time I spent any time in this 24 hour contest was as W1XX/OH0 and it was known as the “Radiosport” championship.  I didn’t know what I’ve been missing.  This is a neat contest coinciding with the every 4-year WRTC emanating in 2018 from DL-land.  You can choose CW, SSB or both.  I chose both or mixed.  Operating off and on around family activity.  I never ran out of QSOs. Working the IARU member society HQ stations is kinda neat as they exchange the society abbreviation — like ARRL — in the exchange.  Otherwise IARU zone number is exchanged ours being “8.”

I made 502 QSOs with a near even split between CW and SSB with a zones multiplier of 52 and HQ mults of 74 and a total score of 170, 604 points.  Not at the head of the class but shows up respectably on 3830Scores. Gave me a chance to test out my refurbished 40meter Yagi and it honked.  Pileups to my CQ  on 20 and 40 SSB were hip deep which is really fun.

I didn’t realize who the WRTC participants were until I started working a slew of Y8#x calls with the 1-letter suffix.  Yep, that was them.  Fun to work picturing these folks in a tent somewhere in Germany on a Hex-beam.  Yes, a hex-beam and they had great signals with 100 watts.

I see scores were posted by K1SX and KS1J…so I suspect that other club members gave this at least a bit of a try.  If so, post your scores and experiences here.

2 comments on “IARU HF Championship

  1. I also had a lot of fun with this one. Like John, I remember when this was called the Radiosport Contest ( I liked that name better). Since this coincided with the WRTC Championship it was especially interesting. They announced the use of the old East German call block for the teams on Friday and assigned individual calls on Saturday just before the contest. The WRTC guys could only run 100 watts but I’m used to that. (Check out the WRTC website to see the Station Description for antennas) Signals on 20 early morning were pretty weak but picked up as the day wore on. 40 was also hopping. The other bands not so much. I submitted a MIXED score since I tried to make a few SSB Q’s Sunday morning. But there wasn’t much there. On the other hand, there was a LOT of CW activity.

    It worked Rick KI1G on three bands and heard John W1XX but that was about it.

    73 Jim KS1J

    IARU HF World Championship

    Call: KS1J
    Operator(s): KS1J
    Station: KS1J

    Class: SOAB(A)Mixed LP
    QTH: RI
    Operating Time (hrs):

    Summary:
    Band CW Qs Ph Qs Zones HQ Mults
    ————————————-
    160: 0 0 0 0
    80: 6 0 4 1
    40: 142 0 13 21
    20: 256 11 13 30
    15: 14 6 3
    10: 0 0 0 0
    ————————————-
    Total: 418 11 36 55 Total Score = 146,328

    Club: CT RI Contest Group

    Comments:

  2. Band QSOs Pts ITU HQ Pt/Q
    7 22 44 7 2 2.0
    14 77 241 12 19 3.1
    21 12 20 4 2 1.7
    28 3 5 2 0 1.7
    Total 114 310 25 23 2.7
    Score: 14,880 — Op time 4 hours–SOAB QRP CW
    Not the kind of rate I shoot for, but still summer contest fun. I spent a chunk of time Sat. morning on 15-20 when they were mostly good for 1 pointers, and then tuned around 10 for a while hoping more ops would get in on a surprise opening there. The right way to do this one is to start on 20 mid Sat afternoon (which I did) and then go to 40 overnight (I slept). I did hear KS1J catching a VK Sunday morning. I did also tho it took a lot more calls!

    I worked, I think, 6 WRTC competitors. Amazing they could hear me even when some of them were nearly in the noise.

    Local connection–It looks like the LY team are the winners. In their bio one of them says they’re bringing a lot of spare PC’s because of the mess in 2014. Well, their qth in 2014 was here in Dighton at Sweets Knoll State Park, and as a volunteer, when one of theirs died, I ran home, installed Winlog on one of my old PC’s, and loaned it to them. Whether my clunker was part of the mess or part of the solution, I never heard. 🙂

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