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Sunday, November 30, 2014

CQ WWDX

This weekend turned out to be a lot busier than expected. With Thanksgiving, and now the beginnings of getting the house ready for the Christmas season, there wasn't a lot of time for radio. But I did get to play in the CQ WWDX contest for about an hour and a half this afternoon. 10 Meters was hot! In those 90 minutes, I worked 50 different stations, about 40 different countries, all of them QRP save one.

When I heard V55V on the band, I cranked up the KXPA100 quicker than you can say "Jack Robinson". Namibia is a totally new one for me, and I rarely hear them on the air.  Even with QRO power, it took me a while to break the pileup, but break it I did.  I am coming closer, ever closer to the 200 DXCC entities worked mark.


Oh, and last week, this came through the mail:


My second DXCC certificate.  This one for working 100 different entities using CW only. And I noticed something interesting, indeed.  My original DXCC certificate, which is for the "mixed" category was issued back in May, 2003 and is certificate #38,973. This certificate, for an all CW DXCC, issued some 11 years later, is only certificate #20,995.  I'm not sure what to make of that.

Hope you all had fun in the contest this weekend.  The bands seemed to be in great shape, I hope a lot of QRPers either earned, or got a great start on their QRP DXCC.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!

3 comments:

  1. Larry,

    It's simple. Each type of DXCC certificate is numbered separately. Not everyone who gets "Mixed" applies for "CW." Indeed, there are a number of DXers who only work phone, or who don't care to get the individual mode awards.

    Congratulations on CW DXCC.

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  2. Aware of that. I was just surprised by the lower number of CW certificates issued. I guess the main reason is that it takes a longer time to become proficient in CW enough to effectively chase DX.

    But I would have thought that since CW was the mode "du jour" for SO many years since the beginning of the DXCC program, that there would have been more.

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  3. I think, but am not sure, that the CW DXCC was also introduced as an award much later than the Mixed and even Phone.

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