The CQ World-Wide WPX Contest

The CQ World-Wide Contest is a world-wide amateur radio competition held twice a year:

• The SSB (voice) event happens the last weekend in March.

• The SSB (voice) event happens over Memorial Day weekend.

  Click Here to view the rules for the CQ World-Wide WPX contest.

Sponsiored by CQ magazine, in this competition amateurs from around the world endeavor to contact amateur stations with as many different callsign prefixes as possible. A prefix is one or more letters/numbers followed by a number. Thanks to the IARU, we have an elaborate yet reasonably logical and consistent assignment of callsign prefixes.
For example, in my callsign (WQ6X) the prefix is WQ6. Because our contact points are multiplied by the number of different prefixes we work, scores in the WPX contest can get rediculously high.
Many counteries activate otherwise little used prefixes for this contest, such as 7K7 for Japan (normally JA), L73 for Argentina (normally LU) and P43/P49 from Brazil (normally PY).

For the 2010 CW event, Ron WQ6X teamed up with N6KI to operate the contest station out in Fallbrook Ca. (N. San Diego County). For the SSB event we used an Elecraft K3 radio and Alpha amplifier running about 850 watts.

For the CW event we were blessed to run the ICOM 7800 (with it's wonderful filters & notches) into a Ten-Tec Centurion amplifer, running about 1350 watts. The 7800 has full dual-receivers built-in which allowed me to work stations on a single frequency while scoping the rest of the band for stray callsigns that give new multipliers, or check other bands for openings. (A serious flaw in the 7800 is the inability to split a receiver to each ear (Dennis has devised an add-on box for next time - with a $12K price tag, how could Icom have missed including this feature?)

For BOTH events we utilized an antenna array consisting of: a3-Element Stepp-IR Yagi and custom 40-Meter Yagi (both rotatable) along with a simple 80 Meter dipole.

Here are two OP pictures from the March 2010 event and a up the mast look at the rotatable antennas.
Because the WPX-CW is a recent event, the photos are not yet online - stay tuned.

WQ6X is currently in Ojai, Southern California

For more information contact Ron Fitch.

Telephone Ron at: (818) 216-5376

E-mail Ron at: Ron@WQ6X.Info