CQ WW SSB 2008 Assisted - Cleaner Logs The Goal After Surprise Zone 16 Victory In 2007

By Jamie Dupree NS3T  radio-sport.net 
Posted October 17, 2008

The Single Op Assisted World win in 2007 of Ilshat Valitov RU9WX was significant on several fronts, but mainly because of his location in Zone 16, which rarely provides top world finishes in single operator categories.

Last year though, there were four Zone 16 stations that finished in the Assisted Top Ten, as RU9WX was first, ER0WW and UU7J were second and third, and UT7QF claimed sixth place.

The 2007 Assisted competition was also a reminder of how important it is to have a clean log. Here was the top four last year in claimed scores:

UU7J - 7,525,710
RU9WX - 7,303,244
ER0WW - 7,236,892
FM/K9NW - 7,112,679

After log checks, that claimed lead for Andy Katsanev UU7J/UU0JM disappeared, as he lost over 11% of his score to bad contacts.

That allowed RU9WX to move into first, as Valitov lost only 7.5% of his claimed score. ER0WW was about the same as he went down 7.7%.

Mike Tessmer at FM/K9NW saw his claimed score docked by 6.9%, which almost allowed him to squeeze into third place. Here are the final Assisted scores:

RU9WX - 6,758,725
ER0WW - 6,682,662
UU7J - 6,669,255
FM/K9NW - 6,622,850

The difference from first to fourth place was less than 136,000 points.

K3OO, K3WW Ready To Do Battle Again in US SOA

After splitting victories in the 2007 CQ WW DX Contests, Rick Saeger K3OO and Charles Fulp K3WW will be battling again in 2008 for top honors in the USA Assisted category.

"If high band conditions are good, I will definitely put in more time," said Saeger K3OO, who won the SSB leg last year in the US.

"I am not crazy about 20m ssb at the bottom of the cycle especially since I only have a tribander at 100’ for 20m," he added.

Only about forty miles down the road in Eastern Pennslyvania, K3WW finished second in Assisted SSB last year, while winning the US CW Assisted battle.

Fulp says it's easier for him to excel in CW than SSB right now.

"My ears are pretty bad at this point, and it is harder for me to run guys on SSB on the low bands where it is pretty noisy," Fulp told radio-sport.net.

"I also am not as intense when it comes to digging in and holding a spot on SSB, I don't like to push guys around even when I might be able to," he admitted.