AA5AU Bids for 14th Straight Low Power Win as ARRL RU Kicks Off New Year of Contesting

By Jamie Dupree NS3T, radio-sport.net 

While the ARRL RTTY Roundup has grown dramatically in terms of participation in recent years, there continues to be one constant in the low power ranks, Don Hill AA5AU.

"I participated in the first Roundup in 1989 which I surprisingly won low power," Hill told radio-sport.net.

After a few years out of the money, Hill made it back to the top slot in 1995 and hasn't looked back.

"(It) started a winning streak which has now been extended to 13 straight years. Because of the streak, I have made the ARRL RTTY Roundup the most important event of year," Hill said.

"I didn't start out saying "Hey, I think I'll try to win the next 10-12 Roundups in a row". It has just turned out that way. I have decided to continue doing a serious low power effort in each and every Roundup until someone knocks me off the top," added Hill.

Over in the high power category, Ed Muns W0YK will again travel to Aruba in search of a third straight single operator title as P49X. Last year he set a RTTY Roundup record with 372,799 points.

"I don't think of it as defending my SO HP World Record as much as having an exhilarating 24 hours of RTTY contesting," Muns said. "If propagation and activity cooperate, it will be a fun ride."

As for strategy, Muns will look for good runs into Europe and North America. "RTTY Round-Up is a rate contest for the winners."

From Aruba, Muns told radio-sport.net that it is obvious how much RTTY contesting has grown in recent years.

"The three major RTTY contests (CQWW, CQWW WPX and RTTY RU) have all had record number of logs submitted each succeeding year recently," said Muns. "My own logs show a similarly amazing increase in number of unique call signs each year."

In fact, the number of logs submitted to the Roundup has doubled in the last five years.

Chasing after Muns in the High Power category is last year's #2 US and #3 World finisher Mike Sims K4GMH.

"Probably the bulk of the RR operation will take place on 20, 40 and 80 meters," says Sims. "the RR is basically a domestic QSO rate contest with DX entities also counting as multipliers."

With the high bands not producing big totals these days, Sims says he expects elbow-to-elbow conditions especially on 40 and 20.

"Forty meters will be extremely crowded if the propagation conditions hold," Sims says. "Look for stations from 7030 to 7100 KHz. The same for 20m, with stations spread out from 14060 to 14120 KHz."

Every operator contacted by radio-sport.net about this event also said they would be doing a lot of work on the second radio in order to turn in a competitive score.

"I'll have the second radio on 15 and 10M most of the day, hoping to grab any opening that occurs on those bands," said Dennis Egan W1UE (ex-NB1B) "but I'll regard those QSOs as a bonus; the real work will be on the 3 low bands."

Egan, who finished 5th in USA high power in 2007, says his basic strategy is very simple: "Work Europe, Work Europe, Work Europe."

W1UE will again operate this year from W1KM in his home state of Massachusetts.

"I didn't do much RTTY contesting until a few years ago; now it ranks second to CW as an enjoyable contesting mode," said Egan.

As for the down solar conditions, they don't frustrate Charlie Morrison KI5XP, who says "it really does make things easier!"

"Without any real option to run anything on 10m and 15 being only marginal, it gives the operator little choice as to bands to be on," Morrison told radio-sport.net

"Right now, its pretty much given, starting on 20m, moving to 40m early, running 40 and 80 until the band dies and that’s it, take your break," said Morrison, who finished third in the US last year in high power.

"Makes life easy when there’s less bands to choose from, less opportunity to be on the “wrong band”."