Just to clarify there were several Worldwide contests previous to the
1987 CQWW RTTY Contest. To include one by the RTTY Journal and
co-sponsored by 73, and to include "The Giant Flash" contest which
actually gave away Dovetron TU's to the winners which brought down the
FCC as I understand the history from Hal Blegen WA7EGA now K7IRA.
The CQWW RTTY Contest was put together by Dale Sinner and CQ. Roy Gould
KT1N now W1RY was also very instrumental in getting things in order with
many aspects of this. Roy was a writer for the RTTY Journal and was the
first and long-time CQWW RTTY contest manager. Roy, Hal, Betsy WV7Y my
XYL and I traveled to and put on HC8 as HD9CQ for this event. We were
hosted by our long time friend HC5K.
This is the data that was prepared and released to the CQ Almanac in
1994. This information is herewith released by me into the public
domain. I had copyright on all of these early records and on this
article which included the records at that time. I have previously released
the records to Don AA5AU.
Permission is granted to the CQ Almanac and Doug Grant, K1DG editor to
include any
or all of the following in that publication. The "All-Time CQWW RTTY
records"
are the basis for an annual article from this author which is usually
published
in the RTTY Journal now known as the Digital Journal.
--------------
History of the CQWW RTTY Contest
In 1986 the publishers of the RTTY Journal and CQ announced that they
were joining forces and
would be co-sponsoring the CQWW RTTY Contest. Dale Sinner, at that time
the new publisher of the RTTY Journal felt that an expansion of that
magazine's old WW RTTY contest into the popular CQ format would be
beneficial to both magazines.
In the Spring of 1987 both magazines announced the new rules. The fourth
weekend in September was picked as the spot for the RTTY contest
weekend. In that first year a number of special contest Dxpeditions
were put on which was a first on RTTY. The first event saw a very large
turnout of contesters with wide spread support and enthusiasm.
RTTY had a long and rich history of contesting going back some number of
years, but without a clear single big contest that was sustained
year-after-year. The majority of contests traditionally had been put on
by various national organizations such as BARTG, CARTG, SARTG, ANARTS,
WAE, and VOLTA. These represented British, Canadian, Scandinavia,
Australia-New Zealand, Germany, and Italy. The U.S. had a number of
different contests from time-to-time. There was always trouble with
certificates and sponsorship in America. The joining of CQ and the RTTY
Journal ended the American problems and was the beginning of the
"modern" era in RTTY contesting.
RTTY contests typically have two major differences from CW and SSB
rules. First, most RTTY
contests are fairly short. 24 to 30 hours is the rule. The continuous
duty cycle of RTTY equipment is very stressful on gear and shorter
periods are better. Secondly, North America has always had a different
multiplier basis than most non digital contests. States/Provinces or
call areas have always been multipliers. So the CQWW has
States/Provinces, Zones, and Countries all as multipliers. The CQ 3-2-1
point multiplier was kept intact to keep foreign interest high and to
make Dxpeditions a part of the contest.
There were about 300 logs submitted for the 1987 CQWW. The only problem
that surfaced was that 160 meters was found to be essentially unusable
by the digital stations. In later years this band was dropped. The
first few years of the contest there was only a Multi-single category
and Multi-Multi was later added. In keeping with the other CQ contests
Single Operator Assisted was added. After the huge popularity of the low
power class of 150 watts in the ARRL's RTTY Roundup this class was also
included in subsequent years in CQWW RTTY.
Long time CQWW RTTY contest manager, Roy Gould, KT1N, added Ron Stailey,
AB5KD as his assistant mangager in 1995. The log's have grown over the
years and the additional help will make sure things stay well organized
and well done.
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