Oceania DX SSB: A Snail Race with a Wonderful Finish

Forty-four contacts, four bands, and enough quiet time to appreciate the scenery.

I was looking forward to the Oceania DX SSB contest. I had stations in mind that I’d already worked but still hoped to confirm through LoTW, so I went in with high hopes. The contest moved at a pace that sometimes felt less like a race and more like watching snails compete.

I had the impression that many Oceania stations were focused elsewhere rather than toward North America—at least, that’s how it seemed from my spot in Tennessee. I was also a little surprised—and disappointed—not to hear Hawaii and several other islands I had worked earlier that week. I had thought those contacts might be good practice for the contest. Maybe those stations were participating, but their antennas were pointed somewhere other than our part of North America. Apparently, the rehearsal was in my direction; the performance may have been elsewhere.

I had excellent company in Stuart (VE9CF) and Peter (VE9CZ). We know one another through ham radio, though we have never met in person. Ham companions, you might say—or “Hamions,” if you’ll allow me to invent a word between contacts. The contest was slow enough to leave time for new vocabulary.

At times, it felt like the three of us were the only competitors out there. We’d make a contact, then sometimes talk over one another while sharing what we’d heard. Their updates were genuinely helpful: they sometimes knew a station’s band or frequency even when it wasn’t on the spotting page, which helped me find stations I might otherwise have missed.

This wasn’t my first contest, but it was my first time calling CQ in one. I tried it on all four bands and got one or two answers on each. Then I stopped before I had to handle a pileup—which was perhaps a little cautious for a contest moving at snail-race speed.

My last contact came on 10 meters: FW1P in Wallis and Futuna called me. I was delighted and laughed afterward. That seemed like the perfect moment to call it a day.

The log

The log contains 44 SSB contacts across four bands and six DXCC entities. I was especially pleased to see Wallis and Futuna, Norfolk Island, the Philippines, and New Caledonia alongside Australia and New Zealand. I was also hoping some of these contacts might bring LoTW confirmations for entities I’d already worked but hadn’t confirmed yet.

AF4OZ contact map with 44 Oceania DX contest contacts from Tennessee across the Pacific, color-coded by band. — My 44 logged contacts across the Pacific, color-coded by band. The map estimates 5 hours 28 minutes on-air time; that figure is a map estimate, not an operating-time total calculated from the ADIF.

Band-by-band score

Band	QSOs	Points/QSO	Contact points	Prefix credits
40 m	20	5	100	13
20 m	10	1	10	5
15 m	12	2	24	8
10 m	2	3	6	2
Total	44	—	140	28

Entities worked

Entity	QSOs	Contact points
Australia	34	108
New Zealand	5	18
Wallis & Futuna Islands	2	5
Norfolk Island	1	5
Philippines	1	2
New Caledonia	1	2
Total	44	140

The contest scoring details follow the official 2026 Oceania DX Contest rules.

It was a patience test, but I enjoyed it. And I’m sincerely grateful to Stuart and Peter. Their help made a real difference, and I wouldn’t have done as well without them. The snail race even gave me a rare 10-meter finish—and a very good reason to call it a day.