YASME Foundation Board Honors radio-sport.net With 2009 Amateur Radio "Excellence Award"

By Jamie Dupree NS3T radio-sport.net
Posted January 10, 2010

The amateur radio based YASME foundation has honored the radio-sport.net website for its groundbreaking coverage of ham radio contesting by awarding this site's creator with a YASME Excellence Award.
In announcing their 2009 awards, The YASME Board of Directors said that radio-sport.net "takes contest reporting into a new genre - the sports reporter."
The YASME Board also cited NS3T's creation of the "Radio-Sport.Net World Rankings database that has been used by many contesters around the world."
"Radiosport.net is an important new forum for Amateur Radio operation," stated the YASME award.
Other YASME Excellence Award winners for 2009 include:
Bob Bruninga WB4APR - the inventor of APRS

George Wallner AA7JV & Tomi Pekarik HA7RY - for DXpeditions to Mellish Reef and the Chesterfield Islands

Don Hill AA5AU - a leader in RTTY Contesting

Nodir Tursoon-Zadeh EY8MM - for his work on 160 and 6 meters from Central Asia

Rich Strand KL7RA - for promoting contesting in Alaska

Like other recipients, the notice of the award was a pleasant New Year's surprise for AA5AU.
"It was a huge surprise to me to find the letter" in the mail, Hill told radio-sport.net.
Hill has been doing years of work on the RTTY contesting front, with his web site rttycontesting.com.
His RTTY portal lays out the next contests, records, rules and much more RTTY contesters all around the world, and the hard work was obvious by the public congratulations for Hill.
"A very well deserved award - you have been instrumental in getting so many of us going in RTTY contesting," wrote Barry Murrell ZS2EZ on the RTTY reflector.
"No one is more deserving," chimed in Earl Smith N5ZM.
"You have made it happen for many of us, including myself."

Conditions Mixed In New Year's First RTTY Contest Weekend

While the sun offered up sunspots for contesters the last week of December and first week of 2010, it did not produce anything great for the first big RTTY contest of the New Year.
The overall leader again this year of the ARRL RTTY Roundup is Ed Muns W0YK, who again posted big numbers from his contest perch in Aruba as P49X.
"From my perspective in Aruba, overall conditions were significantly down from last year," wrote Muns in his 3830 report.
"My QSO number was also down ... by 7.2%."
Still, Muns has the top claimed score so far, with 370,388 points off of 2,987 contacts, none of them on 10 meters.
"The bands just "felt" punk the week before Round-Up and nothing surprising happened during the weekend," reported Muns, who like many, is still hoping for that big boost on 10 and 15 meters.
"If (no, "when") solar activity returns, we should see the number of mults go up for everyone, as well as QSOs," said Muns.
In the low power category, it looks like Don Hill AA5AU may be back, a year after having his 14-year winning streak snapped in this contest category.
Hill rattled off 1758 contacts for 207,444 points, giving him a strong edge over Teddy Jiminez HI3TEJ, who claimed 184,200.
"I had a pretty good Roundup despite so-so conditions," Hill told radio-sport.net.
"I got off to a slow start but the multipliers seemed up this year for me."
In the US high power competition, Mike Sims K4GMH has a strong lead with 260k.
In the Multi-Single category, Team NR5M has the claimed score lead over W0SD with 258,818 to 212,706.
Over in low power M/S, Team N0NI had the second highest overall Multi claimed score at 220,218, and a big lead over N5ZM at 149,677.