Topband: TB CW activity

[VE6WZ_Steve]

This winter season so far on TB has been very good at VE6WZ and I wish to share my thoughts regarding concerns about the lack of CW activity on the band.

CW is **very** alive and well on 160m.  There is no lack of activity from my perspective on the band.  I do understand that perhaps on 6m, the band now is an FT-8 only band, but this is not the case on 160.

A .csv log export of the VE6WZ log was quickly analyzed with a pivot table for the 3 month period Oct, Nov and Dec:

624 EU QSOs (most of these are NOT contest QSOs since I only worked 39 EU during CQWW and ARRL 160 combined)

146 Asia (z17,18,19,24 and 25)

Looking at EU qsos only:
There are 382 unique callsigns, many of which were new to my 160m log.
There were 287 single QSOs (no repeats) and 95 callsigns with more than 2 QSOs. At the top of the repeat QSO list this winter are:

DF2PY	26
LA1MFA	19
RA4LW	19
ON7PQ	18
SM5EDX	15
SM7BIC	14
F5NZ	11
F5IN	10
RC3FL	10

I have a rural hilltop QTH with good rx antennas and I realize that from a high noise urban location 160m DX can be difficult. (most of my 160m DXCC has been worked from my city QTH so I know very much what city noise is about.)

I have heard much discussion (email and on-air) about FT-8 being the “end of CW” on TB, but the purpose of this post is to point out that this is very much NOT the case.  I see the FT8 segment lit-up on my waterfall every night, and lots of guys are enjoying what that mode has to offer, but this season alone I have had CW QSOs with 382 unique CW stations from Europe, and 118 from Asia, so obviously there are still a lot of CW ops out there.  (Since I don't operate FT8, I am sincerely interested how much EU DX the west coast guys have worked this season on FT8?)

If you enjoy FT8 mode, and that helps you get contacts on TB, thats great since more activity is always good on the ham bands, but please don't forget (or assume) that there isn't any CW activity “down the band” !

73, and seasons greeting to all, 

de steve ve6wz