K5ZD announcements

Volunteers Complete WPX CW Score Database

The online score database now includes the complete results from 30 years of the WPX CW Contest (1979 – 2009). Thanks to SP5UAF, LB1G (did 2 years!), K1ZR, N5IE, and W4AU for their work to type in the results.

You can follow your personal history in the WPX contest by going to http://www.cqwpx.com/score_db.htm and typing your call into the search box.  I invite everyone to do this and check that we typed in your scores correctly. If you find any errors please send them to k5zd@cqwpx.com.

Having the complete results makes the records pages completely up to date for every DXCC and category.  View records at http://www.cqwpx.com/records.htm.

It is interesting to see how the contest has evolved over time at http://www.cqwpx.com/stats.htm.

The WPX CW contest is coming up in just 10 days. Have fun in the contest and please submit your log to be a part of the WPX Contest history.

K5ZD announcements

2010 WPX SSB High Claimed Scores

I often received questions about why the logs received page does not include any scores. It’s simple. Many logs do not fill in the claimed score field or it is incorrectly calculated. There’s a saying in the computer business – Garbage In, Garbage Out.

We wanted to find a method that would give everyone a consistent view of the submitted scores after the log submission deadline and BEFORE the log checking begins. The WPX log checking software calculates a raw score for every entry. By using this raw score for the claimed score listing we can be sure that every log is calculated correctly.

The claimed scores for the WPX SSB Contest 2010 are now online at 
http://www.cqwpx.com/claimed.htm?mode=ph 

The scores represent 4,499 electronic logs that have been received (not including checklogs). Paper logs will be added later in the summer. Scores can be sorted by continent and category. A search function is included so you can quickly locate a particular score.

Special thanks to Valery Petrov, RW3GU, for his assistance in building the claimed score pages. I liked Valery’s work on presenting scores at http://pileup.ru/cqww/ and he was very gracious in sending me his php code and some explanation.

I hope you enjoy this first look at the 2010 SSB Contest scores.  Remember that score reductions of 2 to 20% are possible during the checking so the final order of finish may change. Accuracy is part of the game!

Since this is a new feature of the site, please let me know if you find any errors or have suggestions on how to improve the user experience. Send comments to k5zd@cqwpx.com.

K5ZD commentary

CQ WPX Contest 2009 Year in Review

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.