DID YOUR IARU STRATEGY WORK?

By Jamie Dupree NS3T 

No matter how many hours you hope to operate in a contest, there is no substitute for pre-contest planning to help figure out what an operator can achieve.

"It's important to remember that in this contest (IARU), more than any other, multipliers are very important because there are relatively very few of them," said veteran contester Fred Laun K3ZO.

In a post-contest chat over lunch with members of the Potomac Valley Radio Club, Laun said he started the IARU by S&P'ing for mults and not CQ'ing.

"I heard Europeans tuning up before 1200z on 15 meters and they were strong," Laun said. "So when the contest began, I decided to work them and get the mults in case propagation went downhill."

"The IARU formula?" mused Ed Sawyer N1UR, "I still am not sure." And that's from someone who routinely wins contests and right now leads the World low power mixed category.

Sawyer likes the IARU simply because conditions are not the same as other major contests during the year and the 24 hour time frame magnifies the importance of every decision.

Sawyer admitted he didn't even work the entire contest and that off time was part of his plan in the 24 hour IARU.

"Yes I took a nap. Next question!" said Sawyer. "No, seriously, I find 24 hours straight without even a nap a difficult challenge, especially when you have combed every band for mults and the rate meter is on 40 with 1 point W/VE Q's coming through and no chance of a mult calling."

"The most pressure is always should I go to sleep or not," says Simon Treacher 2E0CVN, who S&P'd his way to over 456,000 points with just 50 watts in the low power mixed category.

"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."

Many big guns are getting more and more hi tech when it comes to figuring out what to expect on a contest weekend, especially in terms of propagation.

"You can see the propagation prediction made before the contest at my CU2A web site," said Toni Linden OH2UA, who right now owns the top single operator score in the world.

Linden said he had a night opening to North America on 20 meters. "It wasn't a surprise, but I haven't had such an opening before from the Azores. Can't wait for some more sunspots."

Of course, you can use prediction software all you want, but sometimes scanning the bands is the best way to see what's open and what's not.

"You know you have to keep checking all the bands to make sure you don't miss an opening," said Dan Craig N6MJ. "With SO2R it is much easier to keep track of this.

"But you still second guess yourself afterwards wondering if there was something that you missed."

Your correspondent NS3T did stumble on something like that, finding TM0HQ coming in very strong near Washington, D.C. on 15 meters well after sunset, not exactly a path that some might "predict" at this point in the solar cycle.