Thank you, Oleg, EI7KD, for the opportunity to take part in my favorite contest. – EI/US2YW
First time ever that I participated in a WPX CW Contest! My little QRP station, it gave me a lot of satisfaction! – IZ4AFL
What great fun. Of course, the conditions are never perfect but that did not spoil the fun. – TF1AM
The band are the bands. Nothing broke, everything worked, Yeah! I had fun. – WA8Y
One of my mentors advised that increased sunspot activity brings both improved propagation and increased likelihood of solar disturbances. His wisdom proved accurate for the 2022 edition of the CQWW WPX CW contest. We were teased by conditions prior to the contest, particularly on the high bands. However, the K-index started to shoot up the day prior to the contest and peaked at 7 around 0600 UTC on the first day, meaning that geomagnetic storms were going to be part of our reality for yet another Cycle 25 operating event.
Figure 1 provides a recap of the CQWW WPX CW logs processed for 2022. Nearly 2 million (M) QSOs were validated based on logs received from 127 DXCC entities. Twenty meters was the most active band, accounting for 39% of all QSOs, followed by 15 and 40 meters at roughly 25% each.
Participation was down by over 20% compared to 2021 and QSOs were off by 31%. Europe was particularly impacted with QSO reductions of 44% from last year. The likely contributing factors to the reduced participation include the war in Ukraine, CQ’s policy restricting participation by stations in Russia and Belarus, and resumption of life as normal after Covid-19 impacts.
Single Operator Stellar Performances
shows the breakdown of Single Operator category selections by continent. The percentages of entries in each of the three power categories are nearly identical to the 2021 profiles, suggesting that single operators are creatures of habit when it
