Sparks's Journal

A non-contester's results of the IARU HF Championship

Unless you were asleep at the dial you probably heard a lot of yelling, begging, and contacts being made on the HF bands yesterday. From 1200Z yesterday to 1200Z today stations were on the air doing what contest stations do - making contacts. Ahh, yes, it was the weekend for the IARU HF Championship.

I hadn't planned on participating until I started seeing some islands starting to be advertised on the spotting networks. Since I'm still chasing the islands I immediately seized the opportunity and started making contacts. 80m was also open to Europe in the overnight hours (particularly after 0400Z) so I was able to pick up a few countries there as well.

Here's some of the places I put in the log during the contest:

Aland Islands, 20m CW
Fernando de Noronha Archipelago, 15m SSB
Isle of Man, 20m CW and 40m CW
Faeroe Islands, 40m CW
Aruba, 80m CW and 40m CW
Germany, 80m CW
Canada, 15m CW and 80m CW
South Cook Islands, 20m CW
Portugal, 80m CW

Most, if not all, of these contacts were either new countries, new bands, or new modes. That brings my current DXCC count to:

SSB - 118
CW - 65
Data - 106
Overall - 165

Looks like I will be competing in the upcoming Maryland QSO Party and helping out with the ARRL Rookie Roundup - RTTY, both as K3CAL. Those contests should be a lot of fun!

Oh, and a checklog has been submitted to the ARRL.

Sparks's Journal

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