I enjoy entering a contest now and then, but my idea of a successful weekend is pretty simple: make some contacts, enjoy the exchanges, and have fun. My first CQ World Wide DX SSB Contest gave me plenty of opportunities to do exactly that.
I finished with 321 contacts and a claimed score of 247,080. For a weekend spent working at my own pace with wire antennas, I’m happy with that!
247,080 claimed points
Wire antennas and search and pounce
My station has a 600-watt amplifier, and my antennas are all wires: a ZS6BKW, a 75–10 meter end-fed half-wave, and a 160–10 meter off-center-fed antenna. There’s no big tower or beam here, so working through a busy contest brings its share of challenges.
I had originally hoped to use my BuddiHEX for the contest. Unfortunately, I hadn’t set it up correctly, and it wasn’t working properly. I tried it only briefly before carrying on with the wire antennas.
I operate search and pounce, or S&P: tune around, find a station, and give them a call. Typing the information quickly enough makes running a frequency and calling CQ difficult for me, so S&P lets me enjoy the contest at a manageable pace.
Sometimes I enjoy digging for a challenging contact. Other times, I decide to move on and find an easier one. The fun is in hearing another operator answer and completing the exchange. I don’t need every contact to turn into a test of endurance!
Friday night through Sunday morning
The contest began Friday evening at 8 p.m. my time, midnight UTC. My first contact went into the log at 8:02 p.m., and I kept going until 10:50 p.m., finishing the evening with 69 contacts.
Saturday was my main day. I started again at 5:48 a.m. and made contacts on and off throughout the day, adding 207 QSOs. The last one that evening was at 10:48 p.m. Those times describe the span of my log, with breaks along the way.
I had been under stress and wasn’t feeling well. On Sunday, I started at 8 a.m., added 45 contacts, and decided to call it a weekend. My final contact was at 11:22 a.m.—a little before the noon finish I remembered.
| Local day | Contacts | First–last contact* |
|---|---|---|
| Friday, October 23 | 69 | 8:02–10:50 p.m. |
| Saturday, October 24 | 207 | 5:48 a.m.–10:48 p.m. |
| Sunday, October 25 | 45 | 8:00–11:22 a.m. |
| Total | 321 |
*Eastern daylight time. First-to-last contact spans include breaks.
The numbers behind the weekend
15 meters led the way with 100 contacts, almost a third of my log. Twenty meters followed with 78. I made contacts on all six contest bands, including one on 160 meters!
| Band | QSOs | QSO points | Zones | Countries* |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 160m | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| 80m | 23 | 49 | 8 | 15 |
| 40m | 61 | 154 | 18 | 38 |
| 20m | 78 | 216 | 20 | 52 |
| 15m | 100 | 274 | 20 | 66 |
| 10m | 58 | 157 | 13 | 38 |
| Total | 321 | 852 | 80 | 210 |
*Country multipliers follow the contest-country labels in the N3FJP export, including separate entries for Italy, Sicily, and Italy in Africa. Zones and countries count separately on each band. The log contains no repeated callsign-and-band combinations. All figures are provisional, pending adjudication.
The score calculation is 852 QSO points × (80 zone multipliers + 210 country multipliers) = 247,080.
Twenty-seven zones, one wire-antenna station
Across all bands, I worked 27 of the 40 CQ zones and 84 distinct contest-country labels. The 80 zones and 210 countries in the scoring table count repeat appearances on different bands; the unique totals count each only once.
| Band | Unique zones | CQ zones worked |
|---|---|---|
| 160m | 1 | 4 |
| 80m | 8 | 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 14, 33 |
| 40m | 18 | 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 20, 25, 31, 32, 33 |
| 20m | 20 | 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 20, 21, 33, 35, 37, 40 |
| 15m | 20 | 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 20, 25, 30, 31, 32, 33, 35 |
| 10m | 13 | 5, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 31, 32, 33, 36 |
| All bands | 27 | 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 20, 21, 25, 30, 31, 32, 33, 35, 36, 37, 40 |
Putting the contacts on the map
Seeing those contacts spread across the world is a wonderful reminder of why I enjoy amateur radio. Each line is a brief exchange with another operator, made possible by some wire in the air and a willingness to keep tuning.
A little help with the logging
I’m also working on a voice-controlled logging program with the help of AI. My hope is to add contest support in the future. Being able to speak the logging information could make things easier and perhaps open up more ways for me to participate.
For now, search and pounce suits me just fine. I had fun, found some challenges, and made 321 contacts without turning the weekend into a race. That’s a first CQ WW SSB experience I’m glad I tried.
Thanks to everyone who worked AF4OZ. 73!