Volunteers Help with Score Database

Back in August, I posted a message on the cq-contest reflector looking for volunteers who would be willing to type in line scores for WPX contests. I as very happy to hear from about a dozen volunteers. As always, it is amazing the passion and willingness to help that can be found in the contesting world.

Each volunteer received a set of image files with magazine page scans (some better than others) and instructions. I would estimate it took each volunteer about 12-18 hours of hard work to accomplish their task. It would then take me another 3-6 hours to add the necessary country info and convert the files into the online database.

The result is that we now have an online database with ALL lines scores for WPX SSB from 1985 to 2008 and for WPX CW from 1991 to 2008. You can access various views at http://www.cqwpx.com/score_db.htm

Since there was so much hand work and very small print, I would like to ask everyone to check their scores and report any errors. As we got back into some of the Russian calls of the 1980’s it wasn’t always clear what country a particular call might have been in. So look for errors there as well. If you know of additional scores or corrections that may have appeared in errata in a CQ magazine, please let me know about them.

Thanks to the following for their data entry efforts to help build this historical record.

WPX SSB

Call Year Entries
KQ2M 1994 1650
NN3W 1993 1589
N7AZ 1992 1618
K5ZD 1991 1616
WP3C 1990 1578
SV1RP 1989 1727
K5ZD 1988 1750
AB7E 1987 1554
KA3DRR 1986 1544
N1NK 1985 1459
JK3GAD 1984 1587

WPX CW

Call Year Entries
K4ZW 1992 1160
NN3W 1991 1196
K5ZD 1990 1232
SV1RP 1989 1435
K2DSL/K5ZD 1988 1588

More to come. If you would like to volunteer, please write to me at k5zd@cqwpx.com!

WPX Rules now in 12 Languages

 The rules for the CQ WPX Contest are now available in 12 languages! See
http://www.cqwpx.com/rules.htm

Thanks to the following people for their help with the translations:

French F6BEE
Spanish EA4KD
German DK9VZ
Russian UA2FM
Japanese JK3GAD
Bulgarian LZ2CJ
Czech OK1DSZ
Dutch PA3AAV
Greek SV1DPI
Portuguese PY2WS
Finnish OH6LI

Two new volunteers are working on Romanian and Italian.  Looking for someone who can help with translation into Chinese.

I wanted to recognize these guys (and others who helped with proof reading) for their extra effort and time to help promote and contribute to contesting.

The purpose of this effort is to help everyone better understand the rules of the contest and to generate more activity (and more fun) for everyone.

Survey Results – What is our Favorite Mode?

Time to get back to reporting the results of the on-line WPX participant survey held last August-September. Doug, KR2Q, volunteered to help do some data mining on the results. He discovered a suprising trend among the results.

Favorite Mode

When asked for their favorite contesting mode, the results are simple.

CW – 52%
SSB – 35%
RTTY – 13%

Favorite Mode vs Years of Experience

The survey also asked respondents to enter the number of years they had been active in contests. 

  Mode preference vs Years of Experience

I had always assumed there were Phone ops and CW ops and some who liked both.  I never expected such a correlation between years of experience and changing preference.  What does this say for the future of contesting?  For the future of SSB contesting?!

Global Survey

There were 5037 responses in the graph above. The chart below breaks them down by continent.Survey responses by continent

These results seem to echo what we see on the air and in the log submissions. Europe is the most active part of the world for WPX contesting.