No World Record, But P49X Continues To Hold Strong 2008 CQWW RTTY Lead Over ZX2B

By Jamie Dupree NS3T  radio-sport.net 
Posted October 6, 2008

While he fell short of D4B's single operator world record, it looks like the trip to Aruba may have been worth it for Ed Muns W0YK, as his score from P49X is still clearly #1 in the 2008 CQWW RTTY Contest.

"I made nearly the same QSO's as the D4B world record in 2003, but had many fewer mults due to 10 meters being dead and poorer propagation in general," Muns told radio-sport.net after he returned to the USA.

Muns said propagation to him "seemed" pretty good, but that it wasn't really reflected in his results.

"I would have needed another 700 QSO's, or 500 QSO's and 40 mults to break the world record," said Muns.

In second place for now is Dennis Egan W1UE, the US leader at 3.8 million. Third is Arunas Vaglys LY2IJ with 3.76 million points.

In fourth place in the high power category is UA9CLB with 3.68 million. Fifth is MI0LLL, who piloted GI5K to 3.64 million.

In low power, defending champ Teddy Jiminez HI3TEJ ran HI3T to 2.78 million. VA2UP is second with EE2AJR in third.

Another defending champ is also leading the Assisted category, as Wanderley Gomes PY2MNL operated ZX2B from Brazil to 4.1 million points. LZ2BE is second at 3.09 million, with Mike Sims K4GMH in third, and the top US score as well at 3.04 million.

As for the US SOAB HP leader, Egan W1UE raised his score by 50% over 2007, by knocking out 2,941 QSO's.

"This would have beat last year's top US score by over 1 meg," Egan told radio-sport.net, who added that he did get some decent propagation.

"15 meters graced us with 175 contacts, including a bunch of zone 16 stations on Sunday," said Egan. "20 and 40 meters accounted for over 80% of the contacts."

"This contest was also one for SO2R. By my rough count, I had about 900 second radio Qs," Egan added.

Egan oeprated 42 of the 48 hours in CQWW RTTY. Worldwide leader Muns P49X claimed 47 hours of operation, but said it took a toll.

"I haven't done much serious SO CQWW in recent years (any mode) and that haunted me," said Muns on 3830. "I was not physically capable of operating the 47 hours that I did. At 32 hours in I kept dozing off and decided to take a 45 minute nap."

That kind of sleep deprivation and sleep management will obviously be an issue in just a few weeks as well, when the CQWW SSB Contest arrives on October 25th!