#CQWW WPX SSB 2026 Review

Station callsign: PA6G

Rig: IC-7300 @100W

Antennas: Inverted-L (160-40m), Inverted-V (80-40m), 10m LFA beam, 3-band experimental Halo V2.0 (20-15m), Gainmaster 1/2 wave (10m). 
 

    I have been looking at my last years effort in this contest. Last year was on top of the solar maximum and way better compared to this year. Not that there was no DX, but the signals were weak at times and it was a struggle to get a contact. I didn't even manage to make a decent pile-up on 80m, something I never experienced before. Sometimes I wondered if my antenna was still up? I did build my inverted-L for 160m again before the contest and made some 160m QSOs again this year. I used my contest call PA6G which might be not a good choice in a WPX contest as most contest stations here use PA6 as prefix. PE4 is more unusual and will show up as a new multiplier for many. I wonder if this choice has an effect on the total score. There was almost no propagation to the USA/Canada on 10m this year, I did make some contacts but it was only 2 or 3. 

Well, I can complain about the propagation but there was a lot of DX that could be worked all over the world. Especially the 10m and 15m were interesting and some of the really interesting DX stations have been worked on 2 or 3 bands. Some examples are: HD8R Galapagos Isl. 40,15,10m - 9J2RO Zambia 15, 10m - S21WD Bangladesh 20,15,10m - 3W9A Vietnam 20, 15, 10m - ZM4T New Zealand 20, 15m - VL4A/VK4A 20, 10m. Not very often I manage that.

I started Saturday morning on 160m and 80m, propagation on 80m was very reasonable and a lot of USA could be worked on 80m. With every contact counting for 6 points the score was quickly building. After 80m closed I gave 40m a try and worked some nice DX, then up to 20m which opened to Australia, I moved to 15m to hear some DX on the band. KL5DX from Alaska had a good signal with the usual polar flutter. But it was hard to get through. After a long time calling I catched his attention in a quiet moment. It took several tries and a lot of patience, certainly the most difficult DX I made this contest. His comment was priceless: "Can't believe I pulled it out, thanks for hanging in there". But at least we made it. Up on 10m it was only opening just before the afternoon, signals building but weak. Although some stations were very strong like S09S from Western Sahara, but the pile up was huge and I didn't make it. Sometimes you really need to go on and work others instead of hunting the same station for too long. In between I saw ZD9BV spotted on 10m CW, so I quickly changed mode and plugged my Begali keyer in. A few moments later I made the contact. I've worked ZD9BV before but not on CW. 10m opened late in the evening to the real DX. Worked HQ9, J62, TO7 and HK1 all in a row.

Green=160m, Purple=80m, Blue=40m, Yellow=20m, Brown=15m, Pink=10m, White=Multiple bands

Side note that NH8S is not on Swains Isl. in the Pacific, he was active from the K9CT contest station in the USA. 

Detail map Australasia. Interesting DX you do not hear every day.

Detail map Amerika/Afrika. 

Sunday morning started early. Propagation on 80m was worse compared to Saturday morning. Only a few USA stations could be worked, and it was not easy. 40m was not that good either although a few DX stations have been worked. So, up to 20 and 15, working from low to high frequency S&P. Running was no options, signals were not strong enough. But 10m opened quite early with strong signals from Japan. I even did some running for a while and gathered some more Japanese stations. And the searching for DX went on. Changing bands from 10 to 15 to 20 and back to 10 again. Not the best strategy but at least I constantly worked stations. And finally S09S was worked.

In between I had some breaks of course for coffee, lunch, dinner and even a 45 minute walk with my XYL. Being in front of the radio for such a long time makes your brain a little dizzy at times ;-).

The amount of DXCC that could be worked in this contest was great. I worked 107 DXCC this weekend. Some DXCCs like CY0S and a few others I missed because pileups were just too big. But most of the DXCC I heard could be worked sometimes with a lot of effort.

Like always I had a lot of fun and am looking forward to the next big contest. And although I concentrate on CW the last few years, SSB is still my favorite for contesting right now. However this could be slowly changing in the next years...

My quest to learn CW (28)

 And the CW quest goes on...

I take another approach now on LCWO. I deleted all previous training data to view only the data in the stats that I need to see for a specific speed I train on. Above shows the stats for 28/20 wpm code groups I do now. After 62 attemps in the last month I see a very tiny improvement.

I concentrate on the groups, the plain text training, word training (CW abbreviations on 25/25 wpm) and callsign training (speed about 40-42 wpm).

I don't see much improvement in plain text training at 28/22 wpm, it keeps going up and down around the same line. I score a average of 84,2%. I do english sentences since that is the language most used on the HAM bands.

I wish I had some more time to make more CW QSO's. If I have the time, most likely in the early evening, I'm still intimidated by the speed of most stations. I can do a short QSO with a DX station or a POTA/WWFF station. It goes like R GE UR 559 559 TU. But if I do hear some stations calling I'm always afraid they want to exchange more, like name QTH and whatever. I'm afraid of not decoding the important things the opposite station keys. I'm still not ready to do that at a higher speed as 16 wpm or so. I think the only way to improve that is to make skeds with known stations and just have a chat without worrying to make errors. In reality I see that most of my DX contacts are with FT8, the lazy mode. Although I try to break the CW pile-ups which is not easy with the bad propagation lately. I managed at least a 20m CW contact with CY0S.

I also managed to make some VBand QSOs which are easier to do, although keying on the computer feels different to keying on the radio. I have the idea sometimes there is kind of a delay (lag) which makes it more difficult. However, the ops on VBand are always very patient and kind which makes it encouraging to do your best.

How I transfered CW into a mike

 

During the CWOps CWA Intermediate course I had trouble getting CW into the mike with the keyer of my IC-7300. During the video meetings my CW had some echo sound and it was difficult for the others to read. I still had an old K1EL keyer from the estate of PA3BCB. Had to find out how it should work. In the end I found some documentation and a power supply. I got the thing working but the sound was not too loud. I didn't want to dismantle to whole thing to solder the sounder off the printboard to extend or amplify it. So I drilled a hole just above the sounder and took a stiff hose which I put into the hole. At the other end of the hose I mounted a half part of an fuel filter to amplify the sound a bit. Then I put that on the mike as you can see. Everyone was happy now and this is how I transfered my CW sound into the mike for the video meetings.