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"This could very well be the best CQWW season in nearly a decade," said John Crovelli W2GD, who will be back at P40W on Aruba.
"The recent big upswing in sunspots has really brought 10M to life and with it a rapid rise in interest and activity," Crovelli told radio-sport.net.
All you have to do is look at DX cluster spots in recent days on 10 meters and you can certainly see evidence of exactly that, with much more than just the North-South propagation that has been featured in recent years.
"The old adage there's no meters like ten meters could be the highlight of the SSB weekend for everybody," said Crovelli.
The sunspot number was at 165 this past week - compare that to past years and you can easily see why this year's CQ WW SSB might be a lot different:
That 2002 contest was notable for wide open bands, but also had the downside of an active sun, as a solar flare knocked out a chunk of the contest, though the bands did recover on Sunday.
The overall Single Op winner in 2002 was Jeff Steinman N5TJ, who won from KP3Z. Steinman emerged last year for the first time in many years on the contest scene and won CQ WW SSB from CR2X in the Azores.
In 2011 though, Steinman won't be back to defend his title.
"No current plans to operate this year," he told radio-sport.net last week.
That leaves a wide open battle for the top slot in the Single Operator ranks, and if there is good propagation, it could mean some very high scores.
After a number of years where 20 meters in CQ WW SSB was often described as a "meat grinder," higher sunspot numbers could mean that contest signals are spread out on 20, 15 and 10 meters.
It may seem hard to believe for many, but if you look back to 2002 when the sun was active, the top two single operators that year had over 3,000 QSO's on ten meters; some of the multi-op teams had over 5,000 contacts.
Compare that to last year when the Single Operator winner made just over 900 contacts on 10 meters, and only a handful of multi-ops went over a thousand QSO's.
If 10 and 15 do blow open during CQ WW SSB weekend, then some key decisions will have to be made about when to switch bands.
Usually the mantra is pretty simple - you want to be on the highest open band.
Even with marginal band conditions in recent years, the growth continues in CQ WW SSB, as last year there were almost 6600 logs submitted.
"CQ WW is about working lots of stations, and I mean lots of stations" said Contest Director Bob Coxe K3EST.
When the clock strikes 0000z on October 29, the bands will come to life again with SSB signals - and with great conditions expected, make sure you are part of the worldwide fun.
HI3TEJ - SOAB LP
KR2Q - SOAB QRP
ER0WW (UT5UDX) - Assisted HP
YU2A - Assisted LP
RW3AI - Assisted QRP
D4C - Multi-Single
CN3A - Multi-Two
EF8R - Multi-Multi