CQ CLASSIC
Radio magazine, CQ’s predecessor, sponsored a World-Wide DX Contest in 1939, with good reviews from participants. After an interruption known as World War II, CQ brought it back in 1948. Since this issue contains the CW results of the 71st consecutive running of the CQWW DX Contest, we thought it would be fun to use our 75th anniversary “CQ Classics” series to take you back to the beginning.
First is the contest announcement from the August 1948 issue for the phone week-end at the end of October and the CW weekend at the beginning of November. The basic rules are amazingly similar to today’s, although with far fewer categories and no concerns over such things as self-spotting or remote operation. Only four bands were permitted – 3.5, 7, 14, and 28 megacycles — as the 15-meter band (21 mc) was not available to hams in the U.S. until 1952.
Our second Classic for this month is the results article for CQWW #1, published in the June 1949 issue. The response was termed “enthusiastic” and the editors declared that, “From this year on, it will be an annual operating event certain to grow in popularity.”
That prediction was certainly accurate. In 1948, 137 phone logs were submitted (band conditions were very poor) showing participation by 158 stations in 28 zones. Only two of the logs were for multi-operator efforts and the top score, by PY2AC, was 124,068 points. By contrast, the 2019 SSB weekend drew 5,565 logs showing participation by some 36,000 stations around the world, and the top score, by multi-multi station D4C, was over 42 million points! The 1948 CW weekend (with improved band conditions), drew 499 logs showing 562 participants in 32 zones. Eight stations were multi-op but the top score of 452,454 points went to single-op station GI6TK in Northern Ireland. U.S. multi-op W2IQG placed second overall with 289,680 points. Fast-forward to 2019’s CW weekend, which saw 7,820 logs submitted, including some 33,000 unique call-signs. The top score was multi-multi station
