CQ WPX CW 2009
Well, CQ WPX CW 2009 has just ended and propogation was perfect for the contest
The propagation was outstanding so the point was who was able to take adventage of it, this year participation in the contest was extremely high because the weekend was free of any holidays in the USA and Europe.
Some parts of the world had all 6 bands open at the same time.
I decided to pay attention to some particular entrants: 3V9A, 4L0A, 4L8A, 8P5A, EF8M, RM3F, RS3A, UP2L. Also my intentions were to follow the operation of Steve K6AW from HC8N but I could not find him in the contest. Same with Tom 8P9A, I could not follow his operation because he was not very lucky in working Eastern Europe and this was evident in SSB part of the contest.
Top-score results in the WPX Contest depended on off-air breaks tactics.
I think it would be easier to divide the entrants into categories:
World winners : 3V9A, 4L0A, EF8M.
I liked the 3V9A tactics, especially the first day. Hrane broke away from all of his rivals and this gave him the psycological edge.
I would plan my operation a little bit differenly, but Hrane's tactics are similar to the ones I would use myself
the tactics of EF8M were close to last year's winner LY2CY/D4C except some negative moments, but generally his tactics were pretty clear
4L0A, operated by UU0JM were close to what we saw last year from UU4JMG/4L0A.
The style of operation I most liked is 4L0A, you can hear the records:
3V9A 20m
EF8M 10m
EF8M 15m
EF8M 20m
4L0A 20m
4L0A 15m
I had some laughs watching Z32Zm cluster spots spots at the end of the contest :-)
I think among these three victory credits go to Hrane 3V9A/YT1AD, the only question is the low bands QSO ratio.
In European Russia the major contenders were RM3F and RS3A.
From my point of view both had some tactical flaws and I do not know how did they finished the contest, but Sunday night they had close scores and even their location on band was as close as a few hundred HZ.
RS3A 20m
RM3F 20m - you can even hear RS3A on this record.
Both have already submitted their logs, Andrei UA3DPX won by QSO number, Serge RA3CW won by mults and points.
On 20 meters the competition was among current record holder Vakhtang 4L8A and Willy UP2L/UA9BA.
From my point of view Vakhtang also had serious flaws in his strategy so he operated for a few hours at the worst time of the day.
Willy was running much better, though I thought his first-day break was a little bit longer than required.
Sunday night they also appeared to work a few hundred HZ from each other.
Here are the records:
Judging by the QSO number Willy set a new world record and I congratulate him!!!
Claimed results have been made public and the winner is UP2L/UA9BA.
Thanks to Igor RA3CQ and Girt YL2KL for teir help.
Special thanks to Igor RA3CQ for the records made at my request during the contest.
The moments the records were made were not chosen specifically, records were made in spare time so they just show the contestant's individual operating technique in specified moment of time.
From my point of view UA9BA/UP2L has the best technique, his receiving/transmitting abilities are very highly skilled and close to ideal.
Concerning prefixes and similar calls used in he contest, Andrei RM3F had some issues because RM3Q was pretty active as well, also EF8M had some issues because of EF8A.
