So many club names!

As we started the log checking for the CQ WPX Phone contest, WX5S and I were suprised to discover over 900 different club names listed in the Cabrillo files! Many of them were abbreviations so we were having to do extra research to figure out what the club name really should be. Others were for national organizations such as DARC or ARI that are not eligible for the club competition.

Our goal is to prevent errors by automating the score collection and reporting process. To do this, we need your help in providing accurate log files so we can minimize the amount of manual processing that is required. There is a saying in the computer business, “Garbage In = Garbage Out.”

I have created a web page with a list of known club names. If you are a member of one of these clubs, please take a moment to spell out your full club name in the Cabrillo file. Feel free to cut and paste the exact name from the web page.

Don’t worry about resubmitting a log if you have already sent one. We are already well into the process of sorting it out for this year, but please keep this in mind for your CW log or for the future. Perhaps we will add club name checking to the robot some day.

At 7 days after the WPX CW contest, we have already received over 1850 logs. With a few paper logs still to process, the WPX Phone contest has 3525 logs. Please keep them coming. The more logs we have, the better the log checking. Received log numbers are a great indication to CQ Magazine how much we appreciate their sponsorship of the contest.

We accidentally left out the World High plaque for the Multi-Two category for the WPX CW contest. This is the UA1DZ Memorial sponsored by W3UA.

Good conditions for WPX CW

The WPX CW contest is in the books and conditions were the best so far this year. We had the summer type openings over the pole at night on 20 meters. 40 meters was incredible with DX signals still workable hours after their sunrise (or hours before sunset). From here in the Northeast USA, 15 meters was open to Europe all day on both Saturday and Sunday. I could hear OL7R and DR1A every time I tuned across the band! Even 10 meters produced lots of QSOs by sporadic E. I heard many stations sending very high QSO numbers as a result.

I hope everyone who participated in the contest will submit their log. Only 36 hours after the end of the contest we have already received 1100 logs!

Logs should be sent to the robot at cw@cqwpx.com. If you are having problems submitting your log to the robot, send those to questions@cqwpx.com. Log expert K1AR will help you through the process.

If you have questions about the rules, send them to director@cqwpx.com.

Skimmer and other things

The current single op rules do not prevent the use of a skimmer located within your own station. If you do give skimmer a try, please note it in your soapbox or send me an email with your observations on how it helped (or hurt) your score. We are seeking all input as we consider what changes, if any, need to be made to the rules in response to this new technology.

We are pleased to add two new plaques for both modes.  Helmut Mueller, DF7ZS, is sponsoring the plaques for the World Tribander/Wires category.  Paul Newbury, N4PN, is sponsoring the plaques for USA Tribander/Wires category

Dayton was very exciting for me.  I gave a presentation on Contest Ethics at the Contest University.  Judging by the response, there is a lot of interest in this topic and a desire to keep contesting fair and fun.  I also was extremely pleased to be inducted into the CQ Magazine Contest Hall of Fame. It was quite an emotional moment for me and I appreciate everyone involved in making it happen.