WQ6X Blast from the PAST: All Asian Cw Contest

Long before I got into today's current monthly radiosport activities I loved participating in the occasional Field Day (FD), November Sweepstakes (SS) and of course,
the All Asian Dx Cw contest. 

In my original blog entry "When in Doubt CHEAT - but within the rules" ([CLICK HERE] to read that)
I explained how I ran the All Asian DX Cw contest from the Data General Western HQ office, putting a tunable 2-el 8JK yagi on the roof of the 5-story. 


At the time, 5th floor was under construction.
The RG-58 coax I ran down the stairwell to the 2nd floor where my office was looked like it was part of the construction effort, raising no unwanted attention.  After 5pm on Sunday the coax cable simply disappeared.

Using a crude logging program developed in DG's extended-Basic (running on their MV/10000 micro-Mini computer) helped with DUP checking more than anything.  It was wonderful to be able to print the log sheet pages on the MV/10000's high-speed page printer before leaving the training center
that Sunday afternoon.

Fast forward nearly 20 years found WQ6X engaging in all manner of All Asian exercises; from atop Mt. Abel (in So. California), operating portable from Alameda and multi-OP'ing with N6GEO (2011
in Brentwood and 2012 from his Twain Harte cabin) and of course, the crew @ NX6T in Fallbrook.

For 2013, I decided to reprise my 2011 All Asian SSB GiG on Mt. Abel by making my annual FD excursion to the mountain a week earlier to run the All Asian GiG and then catch up on a LoT of
sleep before team W6SW began to arrive on Thursday.  ([CLICK HERE] to read about that.)

In 2014, for A.A. Cw,
I decided to run a portable operation from a friend's house in Alameda as W6A.

The only trees on the property were barely 20 feet tall, so running any form of horizontal antenna was out of the question.

Being only 0.2 mile from the beach, it was decided to run an old Butternut HF2-V vertical (for 80 & 40) along with a a roof-mounted MFJ apartment antenna for the upper bands.  While signal levels were not the greatest, at least WQ6X was (more-or-less) heard in Asia.


[CLICK HERE] to read the Blog I wrote about WQ6X's involvement in the 2014 All Asian Cw contest.

For 2015, I decided to make a journey to Fallbrook joining up with the Cw team @ NX6T. 
([CLICK HERE] to read about this event.)

In 2016, WQ6X made another trip to Fallbrook.  When it was all over NX6T had taken 2nd place
for North America and 4th place worldwide; not bad, but not enough to satisfy the operators @NX6T.
([CLICK HERE] to read about this event.)

For 2017, having just made the long trip to Fallbrook for the Memorial weekend's CQ WPX contest ([CLICK HERE] to read about it), I was not up to making another long trip to Oceanside, deciding to join up with NX6T remotely.  ([CLICK HERE] to read more about it.)

As described in the 2017 BLOG entry,
this was an opportunity for test-driving technology; external audio filters on the one hand and Russian radio navigation beacons on the other.

Nearly a year later, around the time we were making plans for the 2018 All Asian Cw contest, N6KI received an e-mail with
a 1st-place (for North America) certificate
for our multi-OP GiG in2017.



This is the 1st time I can recall when the 3830 Score was actually a predictor of a major contest 1st-place win.  Morale boosters like that gave encouragement to attempt a repeat of that NA win for 2018.

While dual-OP'ing contests was nothing new for me

in mid-2018, I'd never dual-OP'ed an All Asian GiG before.  Additionally, I wanted to solve the mystery of why Asian propagation is so poor @ W7AYT's QTH.

While Dennis (N6KI) and Rick (N6CY) ran STN-2  live from Fallbrook, I ran the usual "dinner shift" and after 1am shifts.  ([CLICK HERE] to read about that.






From time to time in radiosport, history DOES repeat itself.  This week as we began preparations for the 2019 All Asian Cw GiG, N6KI received another e-mail from the JARL with another 1st-Place for North America certificate attached.  This was also the 2nd time that 3830 Scores predicted our 1st place win.

Preparing for this weekend's All Asian event took me on a trip down memory lane to make sense of the path from 2010 - 2019.  I have often said that variety is the spice of radiosport.  The All Asian Cw contest is an excellent example of the beauty of this variety.

Do YOU like to play in the All Asian Cw contest.

What unique stories do YOU have to tell?