2007 IARU: EARLY ADVANTAGE TO EUROPE AND CU2A (OH2UA)

By Jamie Dupree NS3T 

Using his location in the Azores to his advantage, Toni Linden CU2A (OH2UA) is for now the only single operator to claim more than 3 million points, as he leads all single ops in the IARU 2007 HF Championships.

Powering by some big names in the single operator high power CW category, Linden made 2,842 contacts en route to a 3.097 million score. That gives him a solid lead over YL8M at 2.85 million, with P40W at 2.8 million.

"20 meters was open to North American until 0100 UTC," said Linden, "so I was able to have nice 5 pointers there after the Europeans faded out."

Linden said his pre-contest propagation predictions worked out pretty well. "I can't wait for some more sunspots to have propagation (to North America) on 15 and 10 meters also."

The Finnish ham said he worked "most of my multipliers with the second radio. It was easy to pick up those loud HQ's even with a first radio rate of 140 or so."

The battle for SOHP CW in the US is right now a tie - yes, a dead heat between Bob Raymond WA1Z and W6YI, operated by Dan Craig N6MJ. Both finished with 1,528,804 points.

"I couldn't believe it when I saw that WA1Z had the exact same score as me," said Craig. "What are the odds of that happening?"

"Having a dead tie with Dan N6MJ is amazing," said Raymond. (You can read more about that dead heat here at radio-sport.net.)

As for the other high power categories, the world leader in SSB HP continues to be EA8/OH4NL at 2.45 million. PY2KC is second at 1.859 million. The US leader is W7WA with over 937 thousand points.

Fresh off a high finish in CQ WPX CW, the leader for now in the high power mixed category is UA9CLB at 2.83 million points. Close behind in second place is PS2T (PY2NY) who claimed 2.697 million points.

Operating from PY5EG's megastation, Vitor Santos PY2NY said the PS2T pileups were so constant that he probably missed out on a lot of extra points because he wasn't able to hunt for multipliers on the second radio.

"I was locked running pileups," said Santos, who admitted he wasn't even planning to operate the entire 24 hours.

"I was thinking about taking a short sleep during the contest and have time to eat something, but propagation did the job," said Santos. In an email to radio-sport.net, PY2NY joked that it was so busy, it was "almost impossible to use the bathroom for anything, hi hi."

The W/VE race for high power mixed is very close, as VE3DZ has a 50,000 point lead over VE3EJ, 1.879 million to 1.829 million.

On the low power side of the 2007 IARU, MD0CCE leads in the CW only category with over 847,000 points. OK3C is in second. WJ9B has the US lead at 533k.

In low power SSB, ZP0R (ZP5AZL) is in first with 586,880 points. F4BKV is in second at just over 532,000. N2QT holds the US advantage with 336,175 points. W4SVO is in second with more than 232,000.

For now, the world mixed low power category is in the hands of an American ham, as Ed Sawyer N1UR churned out yet another big contest effort, claiming 709 thousand plus points. W5ZL is second with 587,208.

Sawyer tried his best to maximize US and European contacts by splitting his power to two different antennas. "I find splitting power doubles the W/VE rate and really doesn't hurt the "once every few minutes" EU callers."

It was the first IARU since 2005 for Sawyer, as he rattled off 1423 QSO's, over a thousand of those on CW.

The highest low power mixed scores outside the US are both from the UK. G3WW chalked up 487,224, with 2E0CVN not far back at over 456,000 points.

It was "mostly a S&P effort," said Dez Watson G3WW, "until 10 meters opened for the last three hours, when I ran a productive sporadic-e opening."

Watson could have had a bigger score, but his 15 meter antenna refused to tune up properly, limiting him to only 77 contacts.

Not far behind is fellow countryman Simon Treacher 2E0CVN, who made his 456k score with just 50 watts.

"The easiest way to make QSO's was to S&P on the higher bands whereas on 40 and 80 I could quite easily get a run going and keep a good rate," said Treacher.

"I did decide to take a few hours sleep and regretted it," said Treacher. "If I hadn't I would have made 1,000 contacts."

In the three QRP categories, Europeans lead in two, with the US ahead in one. SM6EQO is tops in CW QRP with 241,164 points. N2WN is second in the world and first in the US at 169,856.

In Mixed QRP, YL2CZ leads at 202,410 points. W6AQ is second and leads the US with 76,608. The SSB QRP category right now is in the hands of KC5R with 175,680.

The raw numbers in the multi-single category are dominated by Europe. P33W on Cyprus has a big lead with 5.3 million points over Russian RL3A with 3.2 million.

In the US multi-single battle, K5NA may be headed for a second straight M/S win, with a score of over 1.7 million points.

Last year Richard King K5NA won in a two man effort with N5ZC, an effort that was the product of a friendly pizza bet with N3BB and N9NB. This time N5ZC couldn't make it, so King brought in Larry Hammel K5OT for what may be another winning US effort.

"I like to run my multi-operations lean and mean," said King. "With just two operators it is almost as if we are both doing a single-op. We work hard and are exhausted by the end of the contest. But it usually results in our best possible effort."

"Our strategy was for me to do all the CW operating," said King, "and Larry K5OT to do all the SSB. This was the same strategy as 2006." It worked, as the K5NA team is over 400 thousand points ahead.

Log checkers may be busy with the fight for second place, as K9RS posted a score of 1,294,528, just about seven thousand more than KD4D's 1,287,611.

"The low band antennas were excellent," said KD4D team member Mark Filipkowski NA3D. "In particular, we received feedback right after the contest that we were the loudest station into Europe on 160 meters! Clearly, the inverted vee beam works great!"

Team leader Mark Bailey KD4D had high praise for the setup that John Evans N3HBX has developed in the outer suburbs of Washington, D.C.

"I am 'very' lucky to be able to operate at N3HBX's new station," said Bailey. "To have big, competitive antennas on every band is a lot of fun."