Still Time to Do Your Homework For CQ WW SSB and CQ WW CW - And It's At Your Fingertips

By Jamie Dupree NS3T  radio-sport.net 
Posted October 13, 2008

It is the second year of "open logs" from the CQ World Wide DX Contest, giving competitors the chance to see how top scorers from around the world stitched together their winning efforts, and there's still time to gain some insights.

The list of SSB logs from the 2007 CQ WW test can be seen at http://www.cqww.com/ssblogs.htm.

(For those looking ahead, you can also peruse the 2007 CQ WW CW logs at http://www.cqww.com/cwlogs.htm.)

Most of us probably imagine the top flight contesters as operators who simply dial up a frequency and call CQ, but that's not true for everyone.

Let's take the logs of the top two Single Ops in the 2007 SSB test, Tom Georgens W2SC who won the contest from 8P5A on Barbados, and Jeff Briggs K1ZM who finished a strong second as VY2ZM from Prince Edward Island in Canada.

Georgens started out on 20 meters, but didn't get traction right away.

"By the second minute, I was already calling CQ with no answers," Georgens wrote after the contest, "and after 39 Q's in 15 minutes, I gave up and went to 40."

Georgens had 194 contacts, "the worst first hour I can ever remember from here."

2300 miles away, Briggs started his contest the old fashioned way, by S&P'ing 20 meters, mainly working non-USA stations in zones 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13.

At 0102z, VY2ZM settled down on 3628 as he worked into Europe and Africa, while making a few second radio contacts on 40 meters.

The strategy for Briggs was simple.

"A wise man once said 'If you are not running Europe from the East Coast of NA, then you are losing the contest!'" Briggs said, adding, "that's true......for SURE!"

Briggs came through on that, as 42% of his contacts were with stations in Zone 14, another 20% from Zone 15. Throw in 4.7% from Zone 16 and those three European zones accounted for two-thirds of his 5,843 contacts.

Down in Barbados, it's a different mix obviously. Georgens had 25% of the QSO's with Zone 5 in the US and Canada, almost 20% from Zone 4.

Zones 14, 15 and 16 accounted for 36% of his 7,805 QSO's.

The two leaders worked each other on four bands, and actually QSY'd together from 75 meters to 160 for an extra contact at 0713 on the first night.

You can look at the logs for 8P5A and VY2ZM by following the links on the right to the CQWW web site. Radio-sport.net has also created rate sheets for some of the top finishers from the 2007 CQ WW SSB Contest, which can be downloaded on the right as well.

Check back before the contest starts on October 25, as radio-sport.net will have more stories about this year's test!