#CQWPX SSB 2025 contest review

     Last year I was writing in the review of the 2024 WPX that my score of 1 million points that year would be hard to beat....

Contest: CQ WPX SSB 2025

Section: SO ALL LP

Radio: IC-7300 @100W

Antennas: Inverted-V 2x22m, 4 elem. LFA 10m, Gainmaster HW 24-29MHz, Experimental multiband halo V2.0.

Saturday was a slow start. not personally but propagation was just not there or not yet there. It had something to do with that big star that shines on us every day. Not that it kept me from working the DX but it was just not as good as Sunday.

Green=10m, Orange=20m. The rest of the colors are not matching since I worked some on multiple bands.

A lot of operating time was possible this weekend, from the statistics I was on the radio for 33 hours and 22 minutes. Lots of DX has been worked but my most memorable DX was with YJ0CA from Vanuatu. Without the 4 element LFA it would never happen. Imagine you turn your beam to almost north and then you hear a faint voice fading in and out from an exotic island in the Pacific. Then finally the pile up gets quiet and the voice becomes readable. You try and shout your call into the mike and surprisingly the QSO is made. You feel so glorious....this is what DX is all about. 

And this was not the only DX made, I worked lots of DX last weekend. The benefits of this worldwide contest with so many participants. Below a list of the 112 DXCC I worked:

There was no 160m antenna this time. Since I was busy with experimental halo rebuilt I had to remove the 160m inverted-L. By the way, the experimental halo did a really great job on 20m and 15m. It was actually no problem to work all the DX I heard on those bands. The nice thing of course is that it is omnidirectional and so I can work both short-, long- and skewed paths at the same time. The disadvantage is that you cannot turn away from QRM and you don't have that extra gain which a directional antenna has. But overall I did not have any problems with that. 

With the count of QSOs per hour at the left here you could say that Saturday was my better day with a higher amount of QSOs. But that's just because for me it is easy to make large 80m runs. 105 QSO in 1 hour doesn't look bad I think. Sunday had a lot of DX which gave me the big points. No real DX on 80m this year though, didn't hear USA or Canada on that band and can't remember if any were spotted here in Europe?

Most memorable happenings:

- Working a lot of Europe on 10m backscatter Saturday.

- Working YJ0CA Vanuatu on 10m

- Receiving HC8M Galapagos Isl. with 59+20dB on Sunday evening

- Working Regin OY1R again on both 80m/40m

Showing my antennatower again. You don't need to have big antennas and power to work 112 DXCC and 1000 QSOs in one weekend. Just be there, spend a lot of time and keep calling. I write again, like last year, this will be hard to beat. But so far I did beat last years score again. You never know what will happen in the future.

My quest to learn CW (16)

  Steady it goes. However had to skip last 2 days CW training because of the CQWPX SSB contest in which I participated. A post about that at a later time. At the right you see which faults I keep making. Is it just me or is everyone making these faults? I seem not to be able to hear the difference between 5, S and H especially when the letters are near to each other. I know it is probabely a matter of training, training and training. Some people seem to have a natural rhythm feeling, I do not have it. When the speed goes up I mix U and V as well, especially when they are behind a letter or a number that ends with a "dot". By the way I can't hear the calls at the right at once, it takes several tries before I got them. Very difficult was BX3/DJ3KR, this one took me at least 10 repeats. Why do I train on higher speeds? Well to train ICR actually. 

So, what else was going on with CW training this month. Well, I keep an eye on the blog from PE2V Vincent. It is in Dutch but if you really want to read it you can probably translate it with google or something. Vincent started to learn CW just a couple of months before I did. I'm a little envious because he's already able to make real ragchew QSOs with CW. He also gave me a few great tips to improve my learning and offered to help me. That's the right HAM spirit. Although so far I'm not really ready to get help, it might be a personal thing. I'm used to do things on my own and I realize sometimes it is better to change that. Takes time though...

Vincent told me to train with short stories and QSOs on CWops. Here are the links to the training sites:

https://cwops.org/fundamental-practice-files/

https://cwops.org/intermediate-practice-files/

The meaning is to listen to the stories and copy the words and complete the short story in your head. No writing involved. So far the first story I figured out the first sentence "Jim has been a HAM for 16 years. He...." and then I lose my mind over and over again. I'm not able to figure out the next words and sentence. It frustrates me and after a few tries I stop with a bad feeling. I think I get distracted or may be I'm afraid of not remembering the first sentence. It might be a psychological thing? I don't like to listen to podcasts either, may be I'm not a good listener. Reading and writing is something I prefer. You see, all kind of doubts. But to meet my goals of making a QSO I really need to change I think, perseverance is the golden word.

Luckily Vincent had an other golden tip for me: Have fun and celebrate every next step you make. Don't look at what others can and do, do what you can do. So I continue with my CW quest. And at a certain moment I will get it and make that 20 minute real CW QSO with just a radio and morsekey or paddle. That's my ultimate goal.

Morse Code Battleship

I won! 

You probably know the battleship game. There are several variations. I even played battleship via packetradio about 25 years ago. What a fun! Hamradio duo developed a battleship game in which you have to play with morse code. An excellent way to train you morsecode skills. While my daily CW training on LCWO.net does continue it is a little boring. The battleship game is a welcome distraction.

https://tools.hamradioduo.com/morse-battleship/

Oh, more fun. They also developed Jake from Waverly IA, an AI robot who likes to have a QSO with you on CW.

Excellent to train CW as well. And you can see that my CW keying is not that good, I make a lot of mistakes. As far as getting on the air, I dare to make short 599 QSOs but don't ask me anything because you will not be able to decode my answer ;-)

https://cw-bot.hamradioduo.com/