CQWW 160 CW Report

In my opinion CQWW 160 CW is one of the most fun, exiting and challenging contests. Topband is the “Mt Everest of DX” pushing the operator and his equipment to the limits.  A topband addict constantly improves his station, listens to noise and statics for hours before keying and he never gets an overdose of sleep. Now, add a contest to this and you have the ultimate challenge!

I arrived at the station at noon on the contest Friday to have time to repair my vertical that gave up to the the pressure of a recent winter storm. Luckily, the weather was good and I had the hardware needed to repair the antenna in time for the contest.

The contest started off Friday night in a comfortable pace, propagation was a little weak but there were enough to do in EU to keep me awake. At 04:44 I rested the key and took a two hour nap as it was hard to keep my eyes open, then came back for another hour and a half before getting breakfast.

After a beautiful Saturday with some outdoor activities and a short afternoon nap I was back on the air at 15:45 ready for action. At 17:04 the first JA was logged and the first NA entered the log at 22:02. Compared to Saturday morning Saturday evening and Sunday morning provided many more DX contacts but also a lot more action over all. Already when breaking for breakfast Sunday morning I had improved my score dramatically compared to 2009.

CQ WW 160 2010 Score Card

Sunday night I finished the CQWW 160 CW contest  with 1.119 contacts logged and a claimed score is 670.215. The filal score of 389.844 in 2009 landed me a #2 SM ranking so naturally I am looking forward to see if my improved score this year will be competitive for #1.

Update: The SINGLE-OP HIGH record set by SE0X stood strong for 11 years. In 2021, SJ2W narrowly surpassed it with a score of 626,322 points, edging out SE0X’s 615,219 points from 2010. SJ2W is a superstation located in northern Sweden.