BAND   QSO DUP  PFX  POINTS   AVG
-----------------------------------
  160   132   3   54     318  2.41
   80   413   4  105    1266  3.07
   40  1044  17  298    3789  3.63
   20  1891  55  523    3967  2.10
   15   654   4   68     990  1.51
   10   460   4   56     660  1.43
-----------------------------------
TOTAL  4594  87 1104   10990  2.39
===================================
     TOTAL SCORE : 12 132 960

Ops: G6PZ, M0CLW, G4MJS, G3TJE

A small team of just three full-time operators this year for WPX CW and as a result, we decided before the contest that we wouldn’t be able to put in an earth-shattering score and would not take things too seriously. There were inevitably periods when two of us got tired around the same time, which meant that one of the two operating positions was unmanned for some hours during the contest.

Subsequently, our score of 12.1mil we are quite pleased with; M/2 is still a new category for us but we got ourselves involved with the like of e.g. DL1A, DQ4W etc who are also posting similar scores in the M/2 category.

As is typical with the CW part of WPX, and it falling in early summer, 20m offered runs of NA into the early hours with good signals. The contest was started with run 1 on 20m and run 2 on 40m and we’d logged some 250 QSOs after the first hour. As daylight broke, it became evident that stations further east of us in Europe were experiencing good conditions on 10m, but this simply didn’t seem to happen for us. However, we were able to work some Es into central and eastern Europe. At around 12z, it was decided to throw the MonstIR (which we used exclusively on 10m) onto North America, and, to our surprise, a couple of US stations made it into the log — but that was just the beginning, with a good run which lasted a good hour or so into the States. Most unexpected, but lots of fun all the same. An added benefit, of course, is that it was an additional band on which QSOs were made therefore meaning we didn’t hammer 20m too much.

20 and 15m conditions were pretty normal though good amounts of far eastern activity was also a pleasant surprise.

Conditions on the second day were not as good as the first and whilst we heard a couple of NA stations on 10m, the were dupes and nothing really fresh was heard or worked. However, Sunday morning saw an opening to the far east. Bagged a number of mults on 10m but we are quite pleased with the number of QSOs there…

We made our WPX CW M/2 score from last year (14.3mil) a benchmark which we didn’t reach but perhaps with a couple more ops (and therefore being able to man both radios for the full 48h) it would have been achievable.

Lots of fun had by all and a good effort. Thanks to all who called us!