A few words about WWA, the contest that’s not a contest, but rather an award.

I chased my share of WWA stations last month. Some days those seemed to be the only non-POTA stations to be found. It felt like I talked to Stuart in New Brunswick daily. That was the one bummer to me: I heard pretty much the same few stations every day. VE9WWA, N1W, CR6WWA, EG3WWA. I did squeeze in a couple new ones the final weekend, 4M5A and YU45MJA.

My white whale of the event were the Dominican stations. I heard them, often loudly, almost every day. But they could never hear me. Friday I spent roughly three hours chasing them on multiple bands with no luck. I know my signals can make it to their island, as I bagged a POTA station activating in the DR in the midst of winter field day. The WWA stations must have been right in an area on the island where my signal skips over.

Ironically I was able to get the closest station, N9W, which was only 52 miles away.

I’m very much a counter when it comes to radio. I want to make contacts and throw them in the log, racking up states, DX entities, etc. that can be added, sorted, and otherwise cataloged. So WWA was very much up my alley. It certainly wasn’t as exciting as a true contest, but it still gave me clear targets to chase each day.

My certificate says 185 points from 37 QSOs across six bands, good for 7197th out of 105,399 entries. It’s not going to get me an invite on to Q5 Ham Radio, but I’m satisfied with it. Even without HI7/HI3.