2010 CQ WW SSB On The Horizon, As Countdown Begins For Year's Biggest Contest

By Jamie Dupree NS3T  radio-sport.net 
Posted October 18, 2010

For many amateurs, the last weekend of October has been circled on the calendar in their own mind for months, as the CQ WW SSB Contest signifies the start of the main contest season around the world.

Last year, the bands gave much of the world a big surprise, as 10 meters opened for many outside of North America.

Overall Single Op winner Rich Smith N6KT made 1,567 QSO's on 10 meters from the Galapagos Islands as HC8A, knocking out 27 zones and 76 DXCC - bringing back memories of when 10 meters used to be wide open.

Compare that propagation to the top Single Op in the US, Krassy Petkov K1LZ, who only managed 19 QSO's, 8 zones and 13 countries.

While many had hoped that the sun would be pumping out more sunspots than a year ago, the numbers have not been very high - but at least there have been sunspots.

A year ago at this time, over 70% of the days had not registered a sunspot, while so far this year, it's been only 16%.

Still, the propagation has contesters wondering.

"The flux is not up as much as I hoped," said Art Hambleton K1BX, who was the top US Single Op in Low Power in CQ WW SSB 2009.

"I dread 20 meter phone," Hambleton added, alluding to the battle that has ensued on a regular basis in recent CQ WW contests on 20 meters, which has been overcrowded because of the lack of propagation on both 15 and 10 meters.

Recent contests though provide some hope, with indications of better band conditions on 15 meters in the CQ WW RTTY contest.

"(CQ WW RTTY) was the third contest this year that pleasantly surprised me with contest results that are clearly related to improving band conditions," said Ed Muns W0YK, who operated that test as P49X in Aruba.

"Hopefully, we're not far away from this North-South high-band propagation expanding to some good East-West propagation."

Some of that East-West propagation was evident in early October between Europe and North America.

"We had a good USA opening on 10M, first time after many years," reported Ranko Boca 4O3A, whose station will be used again by ES5TV in the SSB leg. "We hope to have some propagation on 10M" during the contest.

2010 CQ WW Update Webinar

Once again this year, the Potomac Valley Radio Club is going to sponsor a webinar with top CQ WW organizers, to give contesters the chance to find out the latest over the internet about the 2010 CQ WW DX tests.

Contest Director Bob Cox K3EST will again lead the discussion, which should be a bit more mundane than the 2009 Webinar, which came after a last minute rules change which instituted a new series of penalties for stations determined to be cheating.

The webinar will be Sunday, October 24 at 19:00 UTC. For more information, you can go to the PVRC web site.