2009 CQ WW CW In The Books; Propagation Good & Bad, World Awaits Top Claimed CW Scores

By Jamie Dupree NS3T  radio-sport.net 
Updated December 1, 2009

With even contest heavyweights reporting difficult conditions on some bands, the early lead in the Single Operator High Power category of the 2009 CQ WW CW Contest is for now in the hands of Bernie van der Walt ZS4TX, who ran up just over 8.5 million points from ZS9X.

"ZS is well situated to make top CQWW scores on 10 and 15m at this time in the cycle so I tried to use that as an advantage," van der Walt told radio-sport.net.

15 meters was the money band for ZS4TX, as he made 2,018 of his 4,819 contacts on that band, and added almost 500 QSO's on 10 meters as well.

"I knew 10m was going to open for a short time so I kept a close eye on it to maximise the score on that band," van der Walt said. "I did less S&P and made way more mults than previously - go figure."

If van der Walt is going to stay on top, he'll have to survive some expected strong scores from at least three different operators, Jose Nunes CT1BOH who was at CR3E, Andy Blank N2NT at V47NT and Tom Georgens W2SC at 8P5A.

Not far off the clubhouse lead is Andy Faber AE6Y, who ran P49Y to an estimated 8.5 million points, as he went SOAB HP for only the second time in his many trips to Aruba and Zone 9.

"This time, I went for Qs and ended up with 5955, but the mults were down across the board," said Faber, who like many felt like the bands weren't cooperating.

"40 sounded very good, and I had, of all things, a JA run on 80 early Sunday morning, but in general 20 and 15 just didn't seem to be open to everywhere."

Just behind Faber is Toni Linden OH2UA, who tapped out 8.2 million points in the Azores as CR2X.

"Conditions seemd quite poor, high bands the worst I've ever had here," said Linden as he was leaving for his home in Finland.

"I did not work ANY single EU station on 10 (except another CU2)," Linden added. "On the other hand, I had very short and strange opening to NA on Sunday with huge stateside signals," as Linden said he found the bands to be "overall quite noisy."

The leader in the Assisted category right now is John Barcroft K6AM, who operated ZF2AM in the Cayman Islands to 7.4 million points.

"Decided to try the assisted category this year," Barcroft reported after the contest. "Still learning that if you spend more than 3 min to get the mult, you're losing ground!"

The lackluster propagation took its toll on a number of familiar contest calls, especially on the low bands.

"Conditions were not nearly as good as CQWW PH weekend, particularly on 15M and the low bands," said John Crovelli W2GD, who struggled to 5.3 million points after a tiring week of antenna work at his P40W station.

"40M was apparently endless this time, but I somehow failed to recognize its potential after a poor start there," Crovelli told radio-sport.net.

Crovelli said he instead tried to have more fun and paid more attention to who seemed to be doing well.

"I heard all of the hot hands, V47NT, CR3E, 8P5A and V26K frequently since I was in S&P mode," Crovelli said.

"V47NT had ENDLESS and DEEP pileups. He resorted to split operation often to get control. I didn't note this on anyone else."

As for Bud Trench V26K/AA3B, he has the lead right now in the Low Power category with 6.5 million points.

"Rates were very slow on Sunday afternoon," Trench reported on 3830, adding "it felt like activity from NA was down as compared to the past," something that P40W noted as well.

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