[CQ-Contest] CW slow? No problem

[Bob Shohet, KQ2M]

Hi Holger,

A = 22 K =4 Active geomagnetic cndx with aurora clearly present at the start of the contest.  I even heard US signals with polar flutter!  Tremendous absorption on the polar paths with ZERO sunspots and bottom of the cycle conditions.  I didn’t even HEAR a zone 17 station on 20 until Sunday when the K dropped to ZERO.  In fact the cutoff on the polar paths was so sharp, that I worked SIX Asiatic Russian stations in Zone 16 (UA9 S, T and W calls) but ZERO in zone 17.  In 44 years of contesting I have never experienced that!

While JA activity may be declining, the fact that you worked more EU this weekend than JA or the USA was entirely because of conditions and I wouldn’t expect them to be much better over the next 4 years as we trough and then slowly start up into cycle 25 in 2 – 3 years.

73 and tnx for our qso’s in CQWWCW!

Bob, KQ2M




As for slower CW: We see a trend of declining contest activity from Asia,
especially Japan. I think this was our first major international contest
where we worked more EU stations on 80, 40 & 20 than AS's or NA's!!! We also
worked more EU's than AS's in total. This is unheard of. We have a lot of
slow times from down here and by slowing down to below 30 WPM we felt we got
more callers (clearly straight keys & elbugs). It may be an aging problem.
We have a few own members in their late 70's and they state openly, that
nowadays they struggle with high speed CW for more than 30-60 min and feel
uncomfortable in the chair.

 

----------------- C o n t i n e n t   S u m m a r y -----------------

                 160     80     40     20     15     10  Total    Pct

---------------------------------------------------------------------

North America      0    134    700    431   1164    119   2548   44.8

South America      0      3     18     48     21      8     98    1.7

Europe             0    135    706    539    114      0   1494   26.2

Asia               0     89    370    334    539     29   1361   23.9

Africa             0      1     14      8      5      0     28    0.5

Oceania            2     16     45     41     40     12    156    2.7

???                0      0      2      3      1      1      7    0.1

--------------------------------------------------------------

Total              2    378   1855   1404   1884    169   5692

 

 

Enough complaining! It was a great contest, we enjoyed all the QSO's and
sure will be back for the next one!

 

73 Holger, ZL3IO - one of the ZM4T crew