Category: commentary

As we prepare for the fun and excitement of the 2011 edition of the CQ WPX Contest, it is an excellent time to look back at the activities of the past year.

• WPX SSB 2010 experiences excellent conditions on Saturday and good conditions on Sunday. Log entries increase by 16% to a new record of 4,758. CN2R sets new record in SOAB category. DR1A sets new prefix record with 1747!
• WPX CW 2010 has worst conditions ever and log submissions fall 2% to 3,567. Even so, EF8M sets new SOAB record.
• The WPX CW and SSB score database now extends back to 1975. All scores for all years of the CW contest are now in the database.
• High claimed scores pages were redesigned with help from Valery, R5GA. (see blog) 
• The second annual WPX Contest Survey was conducted between September 6 and 29, 2010. Invitations were sent to 8144 email addresses from logs submitted in the 2010 WPX RTTY, SSB, and CW Contests. We received 4,555 responses to the survey.  Results are presented in 3 parts (go to part 1).
• The WPX Contest followed the lead of the CQWW Contest to issue Yellow and Red cards in place of disqualifications. Extensive checking was done on single-operator entries that appeared to have used DX cluster or other assistance to make QSOs and did not enter the Assisted category. Yellow Cards were issued to 13 entries in WPX SSB 2010.  There were 12 issued on CW. 
• Logs for WPX SSB and CW are made public. We do not publish logs that were submitted as CHECKLOG. (see blog)
• There are no significant rule changes for 2011. Rules are available in 13 languages.
• W5GN mails 1736 certificates for WPX SSB. 1446 for WPX CW.
• Private links to log checking reports were sent by email to everyone who submitted a log for WPX 2010. Reports detailed the final score, any score reductions, list of unique QSOs, and information on errors made by other stations working you. Feedback to this new method of reporting was very positive.
• A new Cabrillo log file checking and submission page was created with the help of LZ2FQ. Participants can upload their log, receive immediate feedback on any errors found, and then have the option to submit their log. (see blog)
• On March 13, 2011, the PVRC hosted a webinar entitled “10.5 Tips for Fun and Success in the WPX Contest” by K5ZD. A recorded version of the webinar can be see at http://www.pvrc.org/webinar/webinars.htm. 
• CQ WPX Contest fan page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/cqwpx) has 1,519 fans! 

Thanks to everyone who participated on the air or contributed to the operation of the CQ WPX Contests.

Thanks to the help of many volunteers we were able to present the 2010 WPX rules in 13 languages. Just for fun, I went back to the web analytics to see which of these translations were being used. The results were interesting so I thought I would share them.

The following table shows page views for all of the Rules pages between January 1, 2010 and December 4, 2010. 

	Page title	Pageviews
1.	CQ WPX Contest – Rules	42,127
2.	CQ WPX Contest – Rules (Japanese)	2,287
3.	CQ WPX Contest – Rules FAQ	1,939
4.	CQ WPX Contest – Rules (Spanish)	1,074
5.	CQ WPX Contest – Rules (German)	873
6.	CQ WPX Contest – Rules (Czech-Slovak)	779
7.	CQ WPX Contest – Rules (Italian)	769
8.	CQ WPX Contest – Rules (Russian)	726
9.	CQ WPX Contest – Rules (Portuguese)	669
10.	CQ WPX Contest – Rules (Swedish)	592
11.	CQ WPX Contest – Rules (French)	385
12.	CQ WPX Contest – Rules (Dutch)	366
13.	CQ WPX Contest – Rules (Lithuanian)	354
14.	CQ WPX Contest – Rules Archive	266
15.	CQ WPX Contest – Rules (Greek)	250
16.	CQ WPX Contest – Rules (Finnish)	249
17.	CQ WPX Contest – Rules (Bulgarian)	156
18.	CQ WPX Contest – Rules (Chinese)	141

The 2011 rules are being completed now and we will be seeking help to provide translations in as many languages as possible.

As we prepare for the 2010 running of the WPX Contest, it is a good time to look back at the contest over the past year.

• WPX SSB contest sees generally poor conditions, but log entries end up a record 4087.
• WPX CW contest has much better conditions and sets a new record with 3649 log entries.
• June 27, 2009 marks the first posting of the Twitter feed.  158 Tweets since then cover the day to day activities around managing the contest.
• Added club name and location name matching to the robot. (See blog)
• In August, invitations to WPX survey are sent to over 9000 participants from 2008/2009 log submissions.  Over 4000 responses received by end of September. Amazing response level.
• Decision made that any log with QSOs only on one band will be changed to single band category.
• Comment period provided for rule changes. Major rule change is to switch Multi-Single from CQWW style rule to 10 band changes per hour. (See blog)
• Number of WPX CW (2,224,164) QSOs exceeds 32-bit address space in PC memory!   Log checking software moves to 64-bit multi-processor Linux server.
• November 1, WPX SSB results in mail to CQ Magazine.  They appear in January 2010 issue.  CW results mailed January 2 for appearance in March 2010 CQ.
• Created online score database with ALL log submissions for WPX SSB and CW from 1994 onward. Help from volunteers who typed in the line scores for years prior to 2001. All score record listings now generated from the online database.
• December 2009 created CQ WPX fan page on Facebook. now up to 538 fans.
• 2010 WPX Contest rules translated into 15 languages.
• New Cabrillo fields adopted to help with formatting of mailing addresses.
• W5GN mails out 1501 certificates for WPX SSB 2009.  Another 1376 for WPX CW.
• Sponsors donate 120 plaques between WPX SSB/CW.  K1DG handles donor management, production, and shipping.
• PVRC hosts “Inside the CQ WPX Contest” webinar on March 14, 2010. Recording available at http://www.pvrc.org/webinar/webinars.htm

We are very excited about the future of the WPX Contest and contesting radiosport in general. The increase in sunspot numbers should improve conditions and enable smaller stations to be more competitive. This should continue the trend of increased log submissions and we look for record number of entries on both modes again this year.

Thanks to everyone who participated on the air or contributed to the operation of the CQ WPX Contests.