CONTESTING

More than 9,200 logs were submitted for the CQWW SSB contest held on the last weekend of October 2020. This sets a new record for most logs submitted for any amateur radio contest.

Table 1 shows increases in contest activity since pandemic restrictions began in mid-March 2020. Note that most spring and summer contests in 2020 showed increases in activity of 30% or more over 2019 levels, but the fall contests are showing smaller percentage increases. A possible explanation is that folks were already staying inside much of the winter in previous years so there’s less room for growth in the winter statistics. I project that winter 2020-2021 contests will show participation increases over the previous year in the 10-25% range.

In the first weekend of November 2020, claimed scores indicate that new records may have been set in several categories of the ARRL Sweepstakes CW contest. Helped by the high participation and the availability of a new ARRL section (Prince Edward Island) as a multiplier, the multi-op team at N6WIN using call ND7K claims a new record high score of 255,360 in the multi-op category, and VE5MX claims a new record high score of 244,944 points in the single-operator unlimited category.

Staying Safe at a Multi-Operator Station

I’ve been privileged to operate at the W3LPL multi-operator / multi-radio contest station in many major contests in the past seven years. In a normal year, 14 or more operators work overlapping shifts at the station, often with 10 or more operators in the shack at one time.