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After watching big chunks of the CQ WPX SSB record book get re-written in this year's contest, it's not too big of a stretch to think that 2010 may bring the same kind of high scores for the CQ WPX CW Contest this weekend.
Topping the list of possible candidates is Valery Komarov RD3AF, who will be back in the Canary Islands at EF8M.
Komarov, who was disqualified at EF8M in the 2008 CQ WW DX CW Contest, set the new WPX CW Single Op record last year, with 17.28 million points, just edging Hrane Milosevic YT1AD, who operated from Tunisia as 3V9A. He finished with 17.11 million.
Last year's contest was marked by some trans-Atlantic openings on 10 meters, which contesters certainly hope get repeated this year as well.
10 meters was open in Europe and Asiatic Russia last weekend for the UN DX Contest, but there was little evidence of big time DX openings, though that could always change for WPX weekend.
As for 10 meters, the Single Op 10 Meters Single Band record hasn't been challenged in some time. It was set by IV3NVN at ZX5J in 2002, at 6.7 million points.
In 2009, the top 10 meters only score was UP6P at 569,430 points.
As for solar conditions, while this year has had more activity on the sun than in the past several, there still has not been a large outbreak on sunpots.
In fact, the sun went blank for almost two weeks earlier this month, with a single spot re-appearing just about a week before the WPX CW contest start.
While EF8M did break the Single Op All Band High Power and CN3A (IK2QEI) set a new Assisted record in 2009, some major records in CQ WPX CW have not been touched in some time:
If you are interested in records and scores of other competitors in CQ WPX CW, don't forget that the WPX website has been dramatically upgraded over the last year, and now contains searchable score information for 30 years of CW contests, back to 1979.
It will now be exactly what the title of the category is - a multi-operator category with a single transmitter.
"There is a real need for a true single transmitter category to provide more opportunities for meaningful competition among more stations," says WPX Contest Director Randy Thompson K5ZD.
The new rule allows 10 band changes per hour (instead of the 8 originally proposed by the WPX Contest Committee.)
The 2010 WPX rules also include a further warning against the use of "QSO alerting assistance":
"QSO alerting assistance is the use of any technology or outside method that provides call sign and frequency information regarding any other station to the operator. It includes, but is not limited to, use of DX cluster, packet, local or remote call and frequency decoding technology (e.g., Skimmer), Internet chat rooms or web sites, operating arrangements involving other individuals."
And still in the rules is a yet to be exercised power of the CQ WPX Contest Committee to publicly release logs on the internet.
It's not clear if WPX will join CQ WW DX in opening all logs to the contest community.
