The 2023 IARU Contest
Back in 2022 I got in the IARU Contest in July just to get my streak QSOs. However I found conditions so good, I stayed much longer. Long enough to make 57 contacts in 32 multipliers, in fact. I stayed from 0001 to 0500Z with a break from around 0130 to 0300Z. That's about 3.5 hours on the air. I concentrated on the HQ stations and made 25 QSOs with them. After I had worked most all I was hearing, I worked other stations of my choice. I got all continents, but AF. This intro leads up to what I did this year in 2023.
It was pretty much the same in 2023 with some exceptions. I did start out with the intention of quitting after getting 2 streak QSOs. After that I had other things planned like watching some TV with my neighbor and walking Roscoe and a few other things. However again conditions were really good and I put in about 3 hours after seeing my neighbor was going out for the evening. I made 23 QSOs with HQ stations. I did make a full contest WAC this year. Let me go into some detail now.
Roughly figuring my score, I count 94 QSO points and 30 multipliers from my 38 QSOs. That's 94 x 30 = 2,820 points total.
My WAC came about this way. First EU from YT0HQ at 0001Z on 15M, then SA PJ2HQ 0014Z 15M, AS 8N8HQ 0022Z 15M, AF CT3KN 0034Z 20M, OC W1AW/KH6 0111Z 15M. That finishes my WAC.... Oooops, I was wrong when I checked later. Hey, there are no NA QSOs as I was concentrating mostly on EU and AS. So it was back to the shack at 0430Z to work in NA K4RO 0438Z 20M. Now I have my contest WAC, not in 3 hours, but a little over 4.5 hours. Oh well.
As far as HQ stations, I thought I'd try to get as many EU countries as possible. I worked in this order: YU 9A G EI F EA SM OZ DL HA S5 HB9 OE ON YO SP UA1 Z3 OH.
i added non-HQ QSOs from the following: EA6 LA UA2 UR OK EU ES. That's a total of 26 countries in EU. Let me think of the major countries I missed: CT ER I LX LY LZ OM SV YL ZA. Some debate about what is a major country, but that's my list, and I'm sticking with it.
Along the way in my quest for EU countries, I was distracted here and there. First by 8N8HQ in Japan on 15M, absolutely booming in, perhaps the strongest signal I've ever heard from JAPAN. I worked him easily on the 2nd call. I found him at the same spot just as strong several times when I was tuning around. After getting him, I started to think about a contest WAC. I needed OC AF and NA. I had heard OC a few times, but passed them by earlier. NA I could get anytime. AF may be difficult. Wait a minute, there's CT3KN whom I've worked many times. This time was just as easy, and AF is in the log. I don't remember just when in the series of events, but I heard ZL6HQ and tried in vain to work him. He was quite weak here, and I was probably weaker there even though I seem to work VK and ZL easily a lot of times.
It's now coming up on 9:00PM and time for a break to get my weather readings. When I finished with that it was back to the hunt for OC. Before long, I found and worked W1AW/KH6. As I said before I thought that finished my WAC, but no.
Now time to clean up with mainly new prefixes. Also conditions to Russia were good now and I always like to work Russia since it was quite hard to get my first Russian several years ago. I haven't checked yet, but these may be new prefixes: UC4L* R4HQ UC2K* UW1M R8TT EE3O* EU4E# RT4G. OK, I checked. The ones with an * are new overall. The one with # is a new prefix for 20M.
Some final thoughts. It still amazes me at times like these how well my minimal QRP performs. It's like I'm running a KW and beam how easy it is to work stations like I was doing tonight. Although some QSOs were rough and some stations I couldn't work at all, the vast majority took only a single call with no repeats at all needed. I was even breaking a few big pileups for some QSOs. I don't understand it, but it sure is fun and I like it.
