Some Sunspots Provide Hope For Good Propagation in 2009 IARU; No Skimmer For Single Ops

By Jamie Dupree NS3T  radio-sport.net 
Posted July 5, 2009

While sunspot numbers continue to be smaller than a number of recent predictions, activity on the high bands has been up in recent weeks, which provides hope for an active 2009 IARU HF Championships this weekend.

The 24 hour contest is often thought to favor European stations, but last year's results show that is not always the case.

Of the nine single operator categories, plus the non-HQ Multioperator section, Europeans took home the high world score in only five of those ten battles, as there were winners from Asia, Africa and South America sprinkled in as well.

This year's IARU features a few wrinkles, as in Russia, there will be another test run for the 2010 contest, which includes the simultaneous running of the World Radiosport Team Championships in Russia.

"We are going to have 4 teams trying WRTC-2010 fields in real life for 24 hours with WRTC-2010 set ups using WRTC-2010 rules and special calls R31WRTC, R32WRTC, R38WRTC, R39WRTC," said WRTC organizer Harry Booklan RA3AUU.

Those four setups will emulate the field day style stations that will be used in the 2010 WRTC in an area not far from Moscow.

"The only difference they have is 10 meter tall tower instead of 12m during WRTC," Booklan added.

For all but the Russian qualifiers, the results of three contests still have to be factored in to determine the team leaders for the 2010 WRTC: the 2008 CQ WW DX SSB and CW contests and the 2009 Russian DX.

As for RA3AUU, he will be back in Cyprus for a field day style operation by P33W, which has won the Multioperator title the past two years.

As for this year's IARU, if you are looking for rules changes, then there is certainly one that should not be overlooked, as the 2009 running of the IARU HF will not allow single operators to use multi-channel software decoders like the "CW Skimmer" program.

The old rule stated, "4.1.3. Use of spotting nets or packet is not permitted."

The new language for 2009 expands on that, with a specific warning for any violations.

"4.1.3. Use of spotting nets, packet, or multi-channel decoders (such as CW Skimmer) is not permitted. Single-operator stations that use spotting nets, packet or multi-channel decoders will be reclassified to the Multi-operator, Single Transmitter category."

That is a reminder that the IARU does not have an Assisted category like many other contests. So any use of spotting aids will push a single op into the Multi-Single competition, as in the ARRL 10 Meter contest.

Last year, the Skimmer was okayed on a temporary basis as the ARRL struggled to refine its rules on how to treat the controversial piece of decoding software.