CQ WW CW Results

I need sleep, lots of sleep… after 33 hours of decoding CW it is time to lean back, recover and reload to get ready for the ARRL 160 meter contest next weekend. But first lets summarize WW DX CW 2009.

No sun spots and shorter daylight hours led to lower propagation and less action on higher bands compared with CQ WW SSB a month ago. 160 meter provided the highest number of contacts thanks to the new antennas and a few good Topband runs. 40 meter was “broken” the first night, improved on Saturday, but it was not until Sunday evening that the band really started to rock with that heavy activity and contest QRM you just love. 20 and 15 open both Saturday and Sunday, and 15 was open to NA for a long time on Sunday afternoon. 10 meter was closed and only a handful of contacts where “forced through” using lots of (will-) power. Almost 1500 stations where logged which is about 500 stations below the result of CQ WW SSB.

CQ WW CW 2009 Score Card

The K3 really showed off this weekend as I decided to give the DSP noise reduction a chance to impress, and it did. I was using NR all weekend which really helped bringing down the noise and statics on lower bands. I am not a fan of using DSP noise reduction on SSB as it produces too many artifacts, but for CW it works fine. Setting the RF-gain right above the noise level together and using NB made the static backdrop less fatiguing.

And the filtering in the K3 just rocks! At one point I was trying to copy a weak JA calling for me when someone fired off a few hundred dits in my passband. I quickly shrunk the passband to 50 hz and was able to shut the door on the jammer to copy the JA perfectly.

Another fun contest weekend is over, now back to cleaning the log!

73 de Björn, SMØMDG