The summer’s most popular HF contest -- The 2015 International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) HF World Championship -- gets under way on July 11 at 1200 UTC and continues for 24 hours. The object of the contest is to contact other amateurs around the world -- especially IARU officials and member-society HQ stations -- in as many ITU zones as possible on 160, 80, 40, 20, 15, and 10 meters -- using CW and phone. The ARRL Headquarters station for the event will be W1AW/5, organized by Steve London, N2IC, in New Mexico. NU1AW/7 in Washington will be the IARU headquarters station, organized by Mark Tharp, KB7HDX. London said the W1AW/5 operation will take place from six sites spread across New Mexico, with eight operators. He’s hoping things will go smoothly, but he’s also been keeping an eye on the weather.

“July is monsoon season in New Mexico,” he said. “It’s not unusual to have thunderstorms that just sit there over large areas, for hours.”

Participating IARU member-society headquarters stations and officials count as score multipliers. Members of the IARU Administrative Council and the three IARU regional executive committees send a signal report plus “AC,” “R1,” “R2,” and “R3,” as appropriate. Other stations send a signal report plus ITU zone, and contact points vary from 1 to 5 points, depending on the other station’s ITU zone.

The IARU offers a variety of entry categories, and single operators can operate SSB only, CW only, or a mixture of both modes. Power categories include High Power (greater than 150 W), Low Power (between 5 W and 150 W), or QRP (5 W or less). This year new Unlimited categories have been added for operators using assistance. There is also a Multioperator, Single Transmitter category, so several friends can get together to operate from one station. 

The IARU HF Championship offers a lot of summertime operating enjoyment and a chance to check out your station and antennas well in advance of the 2015-2016 contest season. There’s plenty of room for casual operators too. 

Submit logs via e-mail. Mail paper logs to IARU International Secretariat, Box 310905, Newington, CT 06111-0905 USA. All logs must be e-mailed or postmarked no later than 1200 UTC on August 11, 2015.