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It might be hard to imagine better conditions than the 2009 CQ 160 CW Contest, but that will certainly be the hope of many as the last full weekend of January arrives in this New Year.
Defending champion Valery Komarov RD3AF, who won last year from the Canary Islands, will be back on again this year as EF8M, trying for a second straight win.
The hot propagation in 2009 will certainly be remembered by many for years to come.
"The conditions Friday evening were the absolute best in over 20 years on a CQ160 CW contest weekend," said John Crovelli W2GD.
"It reminded me of a similar weekend I had in the last (solar) minimum when I got WAS in 14 hours," said Clive Penna GM3POI.
Penna was one of the many who set records in 2009, as he was the first Single Operator in Europe to crack the two million point barrier, ending up with 2,058,632.
The World record remains in the hands of Al Teimurazov 4L5A at 2,919,714, which he set from D4B in 2005.
Single operator marks were also set in almost every single call area in the US and Canada, as Doug Grant erased the US Single Operator mark with a final score of 1.26 million points.
Other records set last year included:
PJ2T will again be active this year, as Jeff Maass K8ND will be joined by Jim Galm W8WTS for a third time.
"Our primary goal each year is to set a new South American record, which we've done each time," Maass told radio-sport.net. But he also admitted he has his eye on the top world score as well.
"To win the World we need to make 200 more QSOs (at least) and pluck a few more multipliers from the Pacific and South America to offset the geographical advantage of the North African competitors," said Maass.
"They also get 1.5 more hours of darkness than we do each night - 3 hours more contest time - pretty important on 160 meters!" Maass added.
So how will Team PJ2T try to make up that ground? One way is with technology.
"We are enhancing our CW Skimmer installation for this contest with three SDR-IQ receivers, each with their own receiving antenna switched to it."
After some questions about cheating arose in recent years, the decision was made to use the much-discussed CW Skimmer to record the entire contest.
Contest director Andy Blank N2NT reported in his results article in CQ Magazine that Skimmers were placed "around the world to record the contest," allowing log checkers to "listen to log segments from virtually any station."
"Although there were no disqualifications, there were some questionable logs and warning letters were sent to the suspected stations," wrote Blank.
Blank took over the contest last year, after a dustup in 2008 involving contesters who used low band internet chat rooms to line up and confirm contacts during the contest, which led to a specific rules change after a series of reports by radio-sport.net.
"The use of any so-called “Chat Rooms” via the internet or similar means for communication between stations or operators during the contest period is strictly prohibited," state the CQ 160 rules.
EA8AH (RD3AF) - Single Op High Power
VE3DO - Single Op Low Power
P33W (RA3AUU) - SO Assisted
K9AY- Single Op QRP
CT9M - Multi Op
2009 CQ 160 Top USA
K1DG - Single Op High Power
WA1Z - Single Op Low Power
N2NT - SO Assisted
K9AY- Single Op QRP
W2GD - Multi Op
The contest begins at 2200z instead of 0000z.
"The start and end times of the contests have been shifted two hours earlier in response to requests from the 160 contesting community," says the note on the CQ 160 web site.
The exchange for stations outside of the US and Canada is different.
Stations in W/VE still send their US state or Canadian province. All other stations will send RS(T) and CQ Zone, just like in CQ WW DX.
"Remember, zones are not multipliers," said CQ 160 Director Andy Blank N2NT. "Just a more uniform exchange than arbitrary country abbreviations."
There is a Single Operator Assisted Class now in CQ 160
It used to be that the use of the DX Cluster would lump single ops into the Multi-op category, but now they will battle in Assisted. That category will also allow the use of the controversial CW decoding program known as CW Skimmer.
There is now a 40 hour Multi Op time limit
While single ops still have a 30 hour limit, now multis must observe a 40 hour maximum operating period. "Off times must be a minimum of 30 minutes in length for all categories," read the rules.
The rules permit some types of remote operation
In 2009, contest sponsors allowed for new remote operating rules for the CQ 160 contest.
2010 CQ 160 CW Contest
2200z January 29 - 2200z January 31;
more on the rules at the
CQ 160 web site.
