2007 CQ WPX CW Strategy Review

By Jamie Dupree NS3T 

"I figured the top ten would be populated by those who gutted it out instead of switching off the radio and spending the weekend with the family." - Dick Green WC1M

In what many contesters hope really was the bottom of the solar cycle, the 2007 CQ WPX CW showed this wasn't as easy as calling CQ and running stations at high rates for 36 straight hours.

"15 meters just sucked" said Ken Widelitz VY2TT/K6LA. "I was down 1,000 QSO's on 15 meters from last year."

"15 meters wasn't projected to open to Europe and it didn't" said Green WC1M. "I did 850 Q's on 15 meters last year and less than 50 this year."

"I was surprised stations down south didn't kill us northern New Englanders on 15 meters, Greed added. That means we are really at the bottom of the sunspot cycle."

One of those stations "down south" is the US leader in the single op high power category, Dan Street K1TO, who also did little on 15, concentrating most of his energy on 20 and 40 meters.

"What's nice about being in Florida is that nearly everything is north. We get good coverage of the USA mults and still have a good path to Europe" said Street.

Still it wasn't a picnic for K1TO, who operated as NE4AA. "40 meters worked well to Europe for those crucial 6-pointers...(but) 40 to Japan was pitiful."

"Conditions in a summertime contest (WPX, IARU, etc) are very different from a traditional winter contest," says Street. "For example, it's unrealistic to expect 20 & 15 to explode with Europeans around our sunrise."

Many expected tough going and that's what they got in this contest. Ed Saywer N1UR operated NV1N to first place so far in US low power mainly by taking what the bands gave him.

"I found that my strategy of working what's open and just keep up the rate did work for me. The result was more W/VE than I was hoping for but certainly within expectations" said Sawyer.

For Green WC1M, the strategy was work Europe, Europe, Europe. "I think (that) strategy worked to some extent. But conditions were so bad that I probably should have turned the beams and worked more US stations when the rate to Europe crashed" said Green.

Sawyer and Green have a running debate about how best to mix contacts from North America and Europe in a contest. It's one of the many strategic decisions that must be made in the WPX weekend.

"It's all about QSO points" said Street, K1TO. "A 100 hour of mostly USA contributes just 100 points, but a 100 hour of mostly Europe on 40M contributes nearly 600 points, a massive difference."

One of those trying to grind out the extra points from Europe was John Laney K4BAI, who spent the weekend manning 15 and 10 meters at the NQ4I multi op station in Georgia.

"I had to work very hard for 847 QSO's on 15 meters" said Laney, who "could only get the top layer of European stations and it was a struggle for most of them."

Demonstrating how bad the conditions were, Laney was operating with a pair of 8-element beams at 125 and 85 feet.

Also operating with some big time antennas was the KD4D crew at the home base of N3HBX. Last year they had 1195 contacts on 15 meters. This year, just 566.

"What a difference between this year and last year" said Mark Bailey KD4D, "There were a lot of slow hours fighting for QSO's on 15 meters, especially Sunday. Bailey's team though did manage to squeeze out a bit of contest magic.

"The highlight of the contest was the great conditions on 80 meters Friday night...We went to 80 early and it was quiet and open to Europe." 132 Europeans went into the KD4D log on 80 with 480 contacts overall on that band.

As for the low bands, the crew at ZL6QH in New Zealand found some great conditions - but just one way propagation.

"The 'one way' effect was most noticeable on the 80M and 160M bands where many stations were audible and often quite strong, but could not be worked" said Brian Miller ZL1AZE.

"We expect that this situation was largely due to the high levels of background QRM and QRN experienced in the Northern hemisphere" said Miller.

While ZL6QH tallied close to 11 million points, their score was down from 2006. "I think we can assume that the reduced score is mainly due to sunspots and extremely poor propagation on ALL bands" said Miller.

"We normally rely on 10 meters and 15 meters making a significant contribution but this was not the case in 2007."