2011 CQ WPX RTTY Could Bring Another Assault On Record Book

By Jamie Dupree NS3T  radio-sport.net 
Posted February 7, 2011

The fastest growing segment of the ham radio contest community continues to be RTTY contesting, and this coming weekend that will be very apparent on the bands, with the 2011 running of the CQ WPX RTTY Contest.

The 16th WPX RTTY in 2010 again shattered the record for submitted logs, as entries went up 16% to just over 2,400, with 170 DXCC in those entries.

There were also a lot of prefixes active, as the top two multi-ops netted almost 1,000 during the contest weekend - HG1S had 998 to 996 for Team 4O3A - they were the winners of the Multi-Multi and Multi-Two categories.

The record for prefixes in this contest was set back in 2009, when Team EF8M ran up 1,036 WPX on their way to a Multi-Multi and overall WPX RTTY record of 25.2 million points.

That Multi-Multi mark was one of the few marks not to be re-written in 2010, as improved propagation combined with record participation levels meant that 10 of the 15 major World records were eclipsed last year.

The biggest was the overall Single Operator record, as Ed Muns W0YK ran his P49X contest station in Aruba to 13.3 million points with 886 prefixes.

Every single band mark in Single Operator High Power was re-written in 2010, except for the 10 meter record, which was set back in 2004 by LU1HF.

Speaking of 10 meters, the Low Power 10 meter record was set last year by JF1RYU - just 3,939 points - so if there is an opening on 10 this year, it might be something to think about for you record hunters out there.

In North America for example, no one has even submitted a 10 meter Low Power single band log - and so, there is no record for that band in WPX RTTY.

On the low power side, the World record from 2009 withstood last year's high scores, as Roger Hoffman N4RR still owns it from his effort as P40R - 5.6 million points.

Hoffman won the Low Power crown again in 2010, this time from PJ4R, as he ended up at 5.4 million points from 1,970 contacts and 650 prefixes.

US Record Book Had Big Changes In 2010

Eight of the 15 records in the United States went out the window in the 2010 CQ WPX RTTY Contest, led by Mike Sims K4GMH, who set the new US record in Single Operator High Power at 7.8 million points.

The USA Low Power mark was also broken in 2010, as Mark Sihlanick N2QT ran WE4M to 3.3 million points. Also set last year were single band marks on 15,20 and 40 meters in both low and high power.

As for multi-operator records in the US, those may be overdue, as Multi-Multi, Multi-One and Multi-Two have all survived in recent years; WW4LL set M/M in 2008, KI1G set M/2 in 2007 and K1LZ set M/S in 2008.