ARLA/CLUSTER: Comité de Prémios da ARRL não atribui pontuação final na disputa URE / DARC 2009.

[João Gonçalves Costa]

NO FIRST PLACE AWARD IN DISPUTED IARU HQ CONTEST

The 2009 IARU contest between the world's national amateur radio 
society headquarters stations has produced a bitter dispute over the 
scores.  This as an argument rages between the Spanish and German 
national societies over who actually finished in first place as the 
ARRL says that nobody will be declared to have taken first place.  
Amateur Radio Newsline's Bruce Tennant, K6PZW, has the details:

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Dave Patton, NN1N, is the Manager, ARRL Membership and Volunteer 
Programs.  In a June 7th statement for the ARRL Awards Committee 
Regarding headquarters station entries in the 2009 IARU HF World 
Championship he writes that a most unfortunate dispute has arisen in 
connection with the outcome of the 2009 IARU HF World Championship.  
This, between AO8HQ on behalf of Spain's Union de Radioaficionados 
Espanoles or URE and DA0HQ on behalf of the Deutscher Amateur Radio 
Club or DARC.  

Pattons says that as the administrator of the contest on behalf of the 
IARU, the ARRL regrets that it has contributed to this development in 
two ways.  He says that far to much emphasis has been allowed to 
develop on competition between headquarters station entries. He 
explains that the special category of headquarters stations was 
intended to raise the visibility of the IARU member-societies among 
active radio amateurs, and to make the contest more interesting to 
participants by providing additional multipliers.  But says Patton, it 
was never intended to be a competition for the highest world score.  
Clearly there can never be a "level playing field" for such 
competition, nor does it further the objectives of the IARU.

Second, in adjudicating the 2009 contest results a serious error was 
made in the initial computation of scores.  He explains that many 
contacts were incorrectly identified as "busted calls" that were not.  
As a result of this error, when the results were first published AO8HQ 
was shown as having the highest score when in fact the DA0HQ score, 
after correction of the computation, is slightly higher.  Therefore, 
the ARRL Awards Committee has decided that no certificate will be 
awarded for the high scoring IARU member society HQ station in 2009.  
Instead, a certificate will be awarded to each continental leader, and 
certificates of appreciation for their participation will be awarded to 
all headquarters stations. 

And there are major changes coming to get this event back on track.  
Effective with the 2010 IARU HF World Championship, no adjudication of 
HQ station logs will be conducted by the ARRL.  A certificate of 
participation will be awarded to each IARU member society headquarters 
station and that will be it.  Also effective with the 2010 event, by 
submitting a log the submitter agrees that the log may be made public, 
at the discretion of the contest sponsor.

For the Amateur Radio Newsline, I'm Brice Tennant, K6PZW, in Los 
Angeles.

--

In the committee statement Patton says that the ARRL will not engage in 
any further correspondence with regard to the 2009 IARU HF World 
Championship but it does welcomes suggestions for improvements for 
future events.  He also says that it is extremely regrettable that the 
matter has escalated into a distraction from the other issues facing 
the words amateur radio organizations today.  The ARRL Awards Committee 
Statement can be seen on line at tinyurl.com/3xfo54h  (radio-sport.net, 
DARC, URE)