The CQWW DX SSB Contest is the biggest contest in the world! It's always full of activity, with wall-to-wall signals on any band that's open. This year saw the early teasings of 10m coming back to life after its long slumber. Activity was improved notably over last year, but the money bands were still 20m and 15m.

I'm happy to report that the station held up well this time. No equipment broke and no trees were set on fire (yes, I did that one year for PA QSO Party!). My score was down a bit from last year. The prior week was a brutal load of travel and other heavy work pressures, so I was tired. I also had a lot planned for the following week, so I needed to get more sleep each night than I originally planned. Still, it was a wonderful weekend on the radio. Here are the details:

Callsign: K3PP Category: Single-Op Assisted
Club: Frankford Radio Club
Logging: N1MM Logger V10.10.2 Transceiver: Icom IC-775DSP
Amplifier: Acom 2000A
Band
QSOs
Zones
Countries
Antennas
160
29
9
14
Inverted-L with two elevated radials
80
82
17
38
Dipole @ 40 ft
40
159
25
73
Dipole @ 50 ft
20
442
36
119
Force-12 EF-420 4 element monobander @ 68 ft
15
548
31
124
Force-12 EF-415 4 element monobander @ 76 ft
10
162
21
51
Force-12 EF-410 4 element monobander @ 84 ft
Totals
1,422
139
419
Claimed Score:
2,211,354

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Highlights:

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I started the contest with a run of Europeans on 15m. This is usually how I start this one because you can get a lot of stations in the log quickly, provided band conditions allow it. They certainly did on 15m! Europe was very strong and the band was generally quiet. Since the PA QSO Party is a bit of a "test drive" for the CQWW DX contests that follow, the conditions on 15m were encouraging news for both modes oc CQWW DX.

I listened on 10m at various times and beam headings to no avail. I didn't hear a peep from anyone on 10m. As uplifting as 15m was, the silence on 10m was a reminder that we are still very near the bottom of the solar cycle.

The 15m opening was about to run dry. The first hour was good, but then it trailed off pretty quickly after that. I thought about moving from 15m to 20m to continue running Europe, but 20m was noisy and signals were not very strong at that time. I then resorted to the tactic that makes the PA QSO Party more than just another contest. I hopped on 40m and started chasing my fellow Pennsylvanians.

Country Multiplier Breakdown

My 1,422 QSOs were with 956 stations in 142 countries! As I analyzed the country totals, I verified something I suspected from this contest. Especially on the low bands, I was working lots of Canadians! Lo and behond, our friends from the Great White North showed up in my log more than any other country! I fly the Canadian Maple Leaf flag here as a big "Thank you!" (and "Merci!") to all the Canadians who made this such a special contest! Trust me, my low band performance, as bad as it was, would have been far worse without all those VE QSOs!

I usually log more Germans than any other country. This time, they came in fourth place! The Italians are usually #2 and here they were only #6! The distribution in this contest tells me three notable things:

  • The RAC must have instituted a Contest University where they are training lots of new contestors! The usual suspects (e.g., VE3EJ and the US immigrants at such places as VY2ZM and VY2TT) were there, but I looged a lot of new VE calls!
  • Ten meters was open to the south, which means Latin American stations were coming out of the woodwork, as they do so well on that band! I worked them on other bands too, but take a look at how strong PY and LU were on 10m!
  • My ability to get a good run going was limited (more on that later). When I can run Europe, I log DL and I stations by the boatload. The weaker showing of both is a clear indicator that my runs were a struggle!

A few countries were nice surprises. Spain always turns out well, but they really turned it on this time, landing in the #2 position. For the first time, China produced several stations, 10 to be precise, all or 20m, though I heard them on 15m and abandoned the DX cluster feeding frenzy after a while. They were STRONG too! The Asian opening on Sunday was nice, the strongest signals I can remember yet from that part of the world!

Zone Multiplier Breakdown

There were few surprises in the zone breakdown. As usual, zones 14 and 15 dominated, with strong showings from zones 8, 11, and 13. I was thrilled to snag VU2PAI on 15m for zone 22 and ST2AR made the usually elusive zone 34 relatively easy. I heard JT5DX coming in loudly on 40m, but I couldn't break through the cluster mob, making zone 23 my only missed zone.

Welcome to the Machines!

I usually have more 6-band stations in the log, but my lousy low-band performance prevented me from logging more. Nevertheless, I am thrilled to have four six-banders and 15 five-banders! Thanks to these stations who seem to be everywhere! Not all of these were multi-ops. P40W (with the legendary fellow FRCer W2GD at the helm) was among the single-ops in this venerable list.

Station 160m 80m 40m 20m 15m 10m
CR3A
x
x
x
x
x
x
6 Bands!
P40W
x
x
x
x
x
x
PJ2T
x
x
x
x
x
x
V48M
x
x
x
x
x
x
CN3A
x
x
x
x
x
5 Bands!
CR2X
x
x
x
x
x
D4C
x
x
x
x
x
DR1A
x
x
x
x
x
EF8R
x
x
x
x
x
KP2M
x
x
x
x
x
NP2B
x
x
x
x
x
P49Y
x
x
x
x
x
PJ4X
x
x
x
x
x
PW7T
x
x
x
x
x
TO7A
x
x
x
x
x
V26B
x
x
x
x
x
V31BD
x
x
x
x
x
VP5T
x
x
x
x
x
YN2AA
x
x
x
x
x

QRM in a Phone Contest! Oh the Humanity!

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Last updated 01-Nov-2010 by K3PP