Posted: Jul 17, 2010 08:30 PDT
The dream is over but, unlike nocturnal ones, this is a dream I will remember for the rest of my life! My week in Russia exceeded all expectations. Our Russian hosts were fantastic! Friendly beyond the call of duty, despite huge work loads, they took care of everything. The hotel was perfect for the 400 or so participants and guests. The food was good, the entertainment was excellent, the rooms were quiet and well air conditioned, the transportation all came off without a hitch. It was a nearly perfect event.
We got through Customs with only two or three total rewrites of the declarations forms which had to be identical, perfect and hand-written on the precisely current version of the printed form (not the one distributed on the airplane). We filled them out in duplicate, keeping one duly stamped and countersigned copy to allow us to re-export our radios on the way out. (In the event, they totally ignored this nicety as we departed.)
I was quite humbled by the invitation to participate and set what I hoped were achievable goals from the beginning. I did NOT want to come in last! Anything else I would consider a success but I really hoped to make it to the third quartile. Bob was more ambitious. He wanted to be in the top half and, heck, winning was something he was willing to consider.
IARU Radiosport is not one of my regular contests nor is Eastern Europe a place where I had operated in the past. I didn't have time to review available historical logs very carefully. So I set 2000 Qs as a basic goal, secretly hoping for 2400, a 100/hour average. Two million points seemed like a good number. In the event, it quickly became apparent that these were naive, overly conservative goals. The rates were very high, signals from Europe and Asiatic Russia were strong, we were able easily to hold run frequencies despite our 100 watts and modest antennas. Clearly, people were out there looking for R3s! By the mid-point of the contest it was clear that 3000 Qs and three megapoints were within reach. We just hoped that the "afternoon doldrums" that afflict us in the US would not be too severe. They weren't. We finished the contest with over 3200 Qs and 3.2M points raw. Wow!
TR4W was mis-counting multipliers, counting HQ stations as both an HQ and a country. So long as we worked another station in the same country on the same band, this would not be a problem but there were some instances where an HQ station was our only contact in a country on a band. In the end, we lost six multipliers off the TR4W tally. When the UBNs come out we will be able to see whether it was due to the logger problem or our own busted QSOs.
Our total score ended up at 3,059,256 points (3115 Qs, 134 HQ mults, 194 country mults). This exceeded my original goals by 50%! It was also good for 25th place out of 48 entries, one place shy of Bob's top half goal. We were VERY close to 24th place - one QSO would have done it! We declared our WRTC 2010 effort to be a total success!
We learned a lot and it would be great to have an opportunity to apply what we learned. For example, we had the lowest percentage of SSB Qs among the field. We clearly did not spend enough time on SSB, a mode that neither of us is fond of, using it mainly as an S&P diversion. One decent SSB run would have put us well up there in the top half. We also did not spend enough time seeking multipliers or moving them from band to band. This, too, would have greatly enhanced our final score. Whether we get another chance at WRTC or not, the experience was invaluable and we are better contesters as a result.
Thanks to all, especially our Russian hosts, organizers and volunteers for making WRTC 2010 a memorable and rewarding experience.