CONTESTING

This Month’s Topics Include the CQWW WPX Contest, the Hamvention® QSO Party, Multi Op During the COVID-19 Pandemic, and Livestreaming Contest Operations

The CQ World Wide WPX Phone contest fell on the last weekend of March. At this point in time, the Coronavirus (COVID-19) was in full swing in some European and Asian countries and well advanced to taking hold in other European countries and North America. Travel already was disrupted, and a series of multi-operator efforts were abandoned during the weeks before the contest. The British and Spanish national societies temporarily suspended all multi-operator categories for the contests they sponsor.

CQ magazine stopped short of banning multi-operator efforts in its contests in recognition that family and remote operating are increasingly popular and included in those categories, but it issued an advisory. Going into the contest, many were uncertain whether activity would suffer from all the restrictions or whether many at-home hams would fire up their rigs and enjoy at least a few hours of contesting. As the dust settles, it is apparent that the latter won the day, with many operators commenting on the great turnout. An all-time high number of entries will mark this year’s Phone weekend. Less than 48 hours after the contest ended, more than 5,900 logs already had been uploaded to the contest servers, eclipsing the previous (2015) record of 5,874 logs. And there were still several days before the log submission deadline.

CQ’s “Safe Contesting Suggestions” were distributed by email and social media during the week before the competition. Since CQ WPX CW weekend is at the end of this month and the pandemic will still be with us in many areas of the world, CQ’s suggestions for safe contesting bear repeating here. Of course, if you are under travelor other restrictions, or in a category of persons more susceptible than others, you should not travel or contest with others except for family members with whom you live.

CQ’s suggestions were:

• Consider staying at home and operating single-op (except for family stations)

• Consider remote multi-op with operators “traveling” to your station via the internet instead of in-person (if you’re equipped for it and if