On 30th June 2025 I worked CS2WWA on 20m FT8 and then noticed a number of other callsigns ending with WWA. I looked up CS2WWA on QRZ.com and saw it was a contest station. I followed a link to the HamAward site which looked to be a real-time update on progress for all the Activators and Hunters in the contest. I thought “I guess I might be a hunter too” and looked up my callsign. I had 2 points which obviously wasn’t going to win me any prizes ;-)

I’ve never taken part in any radio contest, other than as a bystander providing a 59 001 type report to a contest station I happened to work, but then I’d not tried since I retired and had more time on my hands. So I looked at the rules…contact any WWA activator on each band and each mode every day for 7 days. I decided to see how well I could do and started trying to contact all the WWA stations that I could find.

Many stations weren’t exotic, but two points from a station less than 1000km away is still 2 points. I picked up at least 2 new countries in the contest. UP7WWA added Kazhakstan on 4 bands and 2 modes (FT8/FT4). I’d been trying for Kazhakstan for months, but I could only hear stations there that couldn’t hear me. I also picked picked up East Malaysia (9M4WWA).

I wasn’t trying to work the contest 24 hours per day, or even spending every waking hour at it. I filled in gaps in my day trying to get more contacts. I found it frustrating at times with more hunters than activators and whilst my RF setup is OK it’s not competitive with stations running a lot of power or having fantastic rotatable beam antennas. A 7 day contest was OK, in that I knew I couldn’t operate for long hours to cover the entire contest, but it also seemed to drag a little towards the end, with the same stations being contacted over and over again.

Having said that, it was fun and I’m sure this won’t be my last contest. I finished with 217 contacts (434 points) which put me at position 1416 globally (out of over 66,000 stations who participated in some way) in the mixed mode section and 76th in England. As a digi mode only competitor I came 152nd globally and 9th in England. Not bad for a part-time effort!