Click here for RSS feeds or use the email signup form below to be notified about new radio-sport.net news updates
Donations are accepted. We appreciate the help!
Shrugging off what he labeled "bad propagation" on 10 and 15 meters, Hrane Milosevic YT1AD has an over one million point lead on Jose Nunes CT1BOH in this year's single operator competition in the CQ WW CW Contest.
Operating as 3V8BB in Tunisia, Milosevic is claiming 12.8 million points, while Nunes tapped out 11.5 as CT3NT in the Madeira Islands.
"7000 QSO's on 160-20 meters is a good score for me," Milosevic told radio-sport.net after his return to Serbia.
"The sun was not on my side," he added, "only 400 QSO's on 15 meters and 20 QSO's on 10m."
YT1AD's strong defense of his 2007 CW title may block the quest for another win for Nunes, who totaled 6,392 QSO's, with 142 zones and 462 countries from CT3NT.
"No 10 meters but excellent 80 and 160," said Nunes is his 3830 report.
Not far back of CT3NT is last year's third place finisher Andy Blank N2NT, who ran up 11.1 million as V47NT from Zone 8 in St. Kitts and noted the lack of action on the high bands.
"I heard K1TTT on 10 mtrs for one second but that was it. No USA on 10," Blank wrote on 3830.
"I can't wait until 15 and 10 actually open."
In fourth place for now is Yuri Onipko VE3DZ, who posted 9.9 million from PZ5TT in Suriname.
"Though I missed my goal of 10 M and 6000 Q's by a tiny bit, all in all I am very satisfied with my effort," Onipko told radio-sport.net during a stopover in Trinidad and Tobago on his way back to Canada.
Behind Onipko is Tom Georgens 8P5A/W2SC, who clocked 9.3 million from Zone 8, that featured 2,231 QSO's on 20 meters.
"Conditions were much the same as WW SSB, perhaps slightly worse," Georgens wrote on 3830. "That would make them the worst I have ever seen from Barbados. I worked more European stations on 80 than I did on 15."
Meanwhile, there were a lot of smiles on Aruba as John Crovelli W2GD made his way back to P40W for the first time since a major tower climbing accident back in June.
"Congrats to all the skilled operators who competed in SOAB HP catagory this year," said Crovelli, who came in at just over 9 million points. "Hats off to Andy N2NT and Tom W2SC for their outstanding z8 scores."
"I strongly concur with many of the comments posted by my Aruba shipmate Scott, K0DQ/P40Q. This was one fun contest," Crovelli added on 3830.
One top finisher from this year's CQ WW SSB who was not able to repeat his big time score in the CW leg was Toni Linden OH2UA, who came in with 7.9 million points at CU2X. That should be good enough to lead in Europe, but wasn't enough to challenge for the overall title.
"Conditions sucked," said Linden from the Ponta Delgada airport in the Azores. "15M & 20M closed about 3 hours earlier than on SSB."
"Should have done better also on lowbands, but just couldn't get runs going there as I was hoping for," the Finnish contester added.
Behind Linden is Jeff Briggs VY2ZM/K1ZM, who checked in with 7.55 million, a bit better than his CW score in 2007.
"I think I did well for a Zone 5 station at 46 degrees North latitude," Briggs told radio-sport.net.
"15 meters was an effort to land a decent multiplier - only 174 qso's there and 10M at least was open enough to secure 11/7/10 which from up here is better than the 1/1/1 made on SSB."
Another VY2 is at 7.25 million, as Ken Widelitz K6LA seemed pleased with his VY2TT effort.
"If you had told me before the contest I would do 5300+ QSOs and beat last year’s score with 7.25M, with ONE QSO on 10 meters, I would have taken it," said Widelitz.
Also at 7.25 million is John Barcroft K6AM, who piloted the hurricane damaged ZF2AM in the Cayman Islands.
"Conditions were very good on the low bands but the opening on 15 was very light and 10 was mostly dead,"said the California ham.
IN the lower power ranks, the winning streak may be over for the man who has controlled this contest in recent years, as P40Q has an over one million point lead on V26K.
Scott Redd K0DQ/P40Q posted 8.35 million points from his trip to Aruba, his first CQ WW since 2004.
"If it does turn into a #1 finish, it will cap a personal quest to win all six of the major contests (both modes CQ WW, CQ WPX, and ARRL DX)," said Redd.
While Redd piled up the points, Joseph "Bud" Trench AA3B struggled for a second straight year on the high bands, suffering again from lower totals on 15 meters. He tried to make up for it on the low bands.
"I was very surprised by the totals for 160M (219/14/43.) It was quite a thrill to have many loud EU and AF stations call in on the second night," Trench said.
In the end, the 2-point Zone 8 location was not enough to overcome P40Q and his 3-point QSO's to North America from Zone 9, all but ending Trench's bid for four straight low power CW titles.
It's obvious from the early scores that if you did not have major success on 80 and 160, then it was not a route to victory most likely.
"Low bands were excellent with amazing stuff being worked," said Andy Cook G4PIQ, who joined the M6T Multi-Single group in England, which scored 9.3 million.
"10 was just like the SSB leg (as bad as it gets) and 15 was worse than SSB with no real runable time to the US," he told radio-sport.net.
"It was definitely a low band contest," said Matt Strelow KC1XX on 80 meters after the contest ended.
The raw numbers from the US Multi-Multi battle show that, as KC1XX, K3LR and W3LPL - combined - couldn't make 250 total contacts on 10 meters.
Five years ago in the 2003 CW test, KC1XX, K3LR and W3LPL combined for almost 4500 QSOs, as the three averaged 35 zones and 129 multipliers.
Team KC1XX made the best of the low band battle this year, making almost 4,000 contacts on 40, 80 and 160 meters for a 15.3 million claimed score. K3LR was just over 15 million, with W3LPL in third at over 14 million points.
The worldwide M/M lead goes to Team HC8N, which is at 34.3 million points.
In the Multi-Two ranks, Team D4C grabbed the early advantage, with a claimed score of 33.7 million points from 13,231 contacts, 179 zones and 678 countries.
Lastly, the Multi-Single category is led by the 4L0A crew in Georgia, which posted over 16 million points. Team PJ4A is in second at 14.6 million
Back in the single operator ranks, the defending Assisted champ has the lead in that category again, as Sergei Rebrov UT5UDX posted 6,584,256 points from ER0WW in Moldova.
In the USA Assisted ranks, the leader is Paul Jones NN4F who ran up huge multiplier numbers to out score US Assisted champ Charles Fulp K3WW.
NN4F had 2393 QSOs, 183 zones and 594 countries for 5.33 million points. K3WW had 600 more contacts, but only 137 zones and 484 countries for 5.32 million.
While NN4W leads the Assisted ranks in the US, there evidently is a close battle in the SOAB HP arena, as Krassy Petkov K1LZ has put out word that he had 7.05 million points, ahead of defending US champ Randy Thompson, who hit the finish line with 6.8 million.
Petkov made all but 550 of his 3,969 contacts on 20, 40 and 80 meters, as he ran up 133 zones and 487 countries.
"Any contest other than CQ WW CW this weekend, and I would have quit," Thompson said on 3830, adding that "tough conditions" kept him from running stations on 15 and 160 meters.
Behind K1LZ and K5ZD is Doug Grant K1DG, who fought antenna troubles on 40 meters, but still managed to crack the 6 million point mark as well.
"Despite the 40M beam failure that probably cost me this contest, I still love this game!" Grant wrote on the 3830 reflector.
Another New England operator loving this game is Ed Sawyer N1UR, who hit his stride in the CQ WW CW low power battle in the US, as he dropped a 2.5 million point claimed score on his competitors.
"I equalled my best Q total and had the best zone and countries mult total ever for me," Sawyer reported, as he knocked out 1,844 Q's, 112 zones and 380 countries from Vermont.
As he did in the SSB leg, Sawyer narrowly edged out Art Hambleton K1BX, as those two continue their budding big contest rivalry in low power. K1BX claimed 2.41 million, leaving this one to the log checkers again.
Check back all week as radio-sport.net updates the aftermath of the 2008 CQ WW CW Contest!
V26K (AA3B) - SOAB LP
6V7D (K1XM) - SOAB QRP
ER0WW (UT5UDX) - SO Assisted
C4N - Multi-Single
HC8N - Multi-Two
3X5A - Multi-Multi
With CQ Magazine again making public the logs of every station from the 2007 CQ WW DX Contests, you can go on the internet and check any of the over 4700 entries in the 2007 CW test.
Also, radio-sport.net has produced rate sheets to go along with the logs to give you even more information about the top finishers from last year.
3V2A - 3V2A log / 2007 rate sheet
P40W - P40W log / 2007 rate sheet
V47NT - V47NT log / 2007 rate sheet
8P5A - 8P5A log / 2007 rate sheet
A45XR - A45XR log / 2007 rate sheet
CN3A - CN3A log / 2007 rate sheet
9K2HN - 9K2HN log / 2007 rate sheet
CU2A - CU2A log / 2007 rate sheet
6W1RW - 6W1RW log / 2007 rate sheet
4L0A - 4L0A log / 2007 rate sheet
Linden claimed 7.9 million from CU2X in the Azores, but like in 2007, his margin over his closest pursuer was not a huge advantage.
In second at 7.4 million is Dave Kucelin 9A1UN, who operated the 9A1P station in Croatia.
"I tried to avoid EU runs and focus on North America as much as possible and it was the right choice," Kucelin said in his 3830.
Last year it was Ben Och DL6FBL who came closest to OH2UA, but this year's CW leg at SV9CVY did not have the same magic for the German contester.
"I could not make use of my southerly location this year, there was simply no openings on 15 and 10 meters which I could have exploited," Och told radio-sport.net.
"Even on 160m south-east Europe was under strange (bad) propagation as I learned from W4ZV that he called me many times, but I could not get any beep from him," said Och. "Normally Bill should have been easy to log."
SV9CVY was at 6.3 million, a bit behind Ranko Boca 4O3A, who claimed 6.6 million in what was another CQ WW adventure for him this year.
For Boca, the CW test was a repeat of CQ WW SSB, where the power failed at his station in Montenegro. This time when the power went out, Boca's backup generator came on, but then that failed as well.
"Total damage is 2 hours without any electricity and 14 hours with lot of disturbance and operating 80% of this time," said Boca, who claimed 6.6 million points.
Boca actually shut the radios off at one point and decided to QRT, but then turned things back on and jumped back into the fray.
"In general, it was Low band contest. Bad propagation on 15M and 10M did limit and final multiplier score is worse I ever had," he wrote on 3830.
"Bottom line first: propagation sucked," said Och DL6FBL, summing up the feelings of many from last weekend. "About 700 QSOs, 50 multipliers and over 1 million points LESS than last year."
