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.:The Story Behind
          NU1AW

At first, amateur stations had no prefixes indicating the country where they were located. After transoceanic amateur radio communication became commonplace in 1924, hams began to use an informal system of prefixes (called "intermediates" at the time) where "A" stood for Australia, "C" for Canada, "U" for United States, etc. This worked fine at first, but did not provide enough options. January 1927 QST unveiled a new intermediate list- the work of the Executive Committee of the International Amateur Radio Union (IARU). It was a two letter system with the first letter indicating the continent, ("A" for "Asia", "N" for North America, "F" for Africa, etc.), and the second letter indicating the country. Thus, stations in the US used "NU".

The new system was soon overtaken by events. International regulations adopted later that same year included the allocation of a series of "call signals", such as K, N and W for the United States. US amateurs sported the voluntary NU prefix for just 20 months before it was replaced with W.

The founding president of the IARU was Hiram Percy Maxim, 1AW, who held that office until his death in 1938. In 1996, the FCC issued the IARU the callsign of NU1AW. It commemorates HPM and the IARU's creative- if short lived- solution to the problem of international identification of stations.

Since that time, the IARU has grown to include member-societies in 150 countries.

Hiram Percy Maxim

.: 2009 IARU Radiosport Contest, NU1AW/KH6

In 2009 KH6LC was selected, along with KH6YY, to represent Hawaii in the IARU Radiosport Contest as a IARU member society HQ station, commemorating 50 years of Hawaiian Statehood. The team at KH6LC did  the CW duties on all bands, and were also responsible for the 80M phone contacts. KH6YY, also signing NU1AW/KH6, did all phone duties on all bands, except 80M.

NU1AW/KH6 ended the contest with a claimed score of
5,076 QSOs and 9,532,665 points

A big Mahalo goes out to Dave Sumner, K1ZZ (NU1AW trustee),
Alex, KH6YY and Mike KH6ND for putting it all together!

NU1AW/KH6 at KH6LC Operators (Left to right)
Ken, N6KB, Fred, KH7Y, Curt, AH6RE, Lloyd, KH6LC, and Rob, NH6V