Turkish Operation Takes Top Honors in 2008 Worked All Europe CW Contest Final Results

By Jamie Dupree NS3T  radio-sport.net 
Posted January 19, 2009

In recent years, hams have traveled to a variety of countries in search of an optimum location that gives them a contest advantage on others. Now, add Turkey to that list, as it provided us with the top single operator score in the 2008 WAE CW Contest.

At the helm of TC4X was veteran contester Pertti Simovaara OH2PM, who chalked up 2.21 million points for the win.

Finishing second was C4I, operated by Andrey Sachkov LZ2HM, with 2.16 million.

In the European competition, Stefan Von Baltz DL1IAO took top honors in the High Power category, as he totaled 1.82 million to 1.64 million for Lothar Wilke DL3TD.

The low power winner from Europe was not even close as Slavko Celarc S57DX ran away with the victory, finishing with 877,788 points. Nicolas Exner DK5DQ was a distant second place at 586k.

In the multi-op competition, Team DR1A did not repeat its performance of 2007, where it had the high score both in Europe and worldwide.

While the top European score went to DR1A, it was team 4L0A in Georgia that won world honors with 3.34 million points, edging out Team D4C from the Cape Verde Islands.

It was the first of two trips to Georgia for the WAE contests for Andy Kotovsky UU4JMG and Andi Kazantsev UU0JM, as they also posted the high score in the WAE SSB test for the Multi category.

The WAE CW test is one of the qualifying contests for the 2010 World Radiosport Team Championships in Russia, and that sparked more interest than usual from the US.

Doug Grant K1DG had the top score in region NA #1, Scott Robbins W4PA in NA #2, Kevin Stockton N5DX in NA #3 and K6XT in NA #4, as none of the favorites in that final region picked up any substantial WAE points.