For WQ6X it's all about All Asian (& W. Virginia-Kinda)

The weekend before Field Day, the Asians host a DX party known as the All Asian DX Contest. 
Last week I wrote a Blog about why I still like to play in the All Asian Dx contest.  In last year's
Blast from the Past Blog about the All Asian contest, I described the different venues I have
used to run this GiG, which include from a 4 story office building (Ca. 1982), a campsite on
Mt. Abel (June-2013) and a sailboat in Alameda's Aeolian yacht harbor (2019).

In preparation for last weekend's dual operation, I glanced thru the WA7BNM Contest Calendar, getting the low-down on what to expect activity-wise on the bands.  It turns out there were
4 contest events of interest to me, altho the Asian contest is always Priority 1.

1. [x] - The 61st All Asian Dx Cw Contest
2. [x] - Ukrainian DX Classic RTTY Contest
3. [x] - Stew Perry Topband Challenge
4. [x] - West Virginia QSO Party

While NX6T usually participates in the Stew Perry GiG, this last weekend we had enough headaches from running the All Asian GiG; adding a 160 meter run to the confusion woulda been too much. 

From time to time I tuned around the RTTY sections of 20 & 40 meters looking for some significant
RTTY activity.  Less than a handful of RTTY signals were heard, with no evidence that they were even working the Ukrainian GiG.  As WQ6X (but from NX6T-Stn1) I managed a SINGLE QSO (WA8KAN) in the WVQP event, echoing my beef that (outside of CQP) not enough stations play
in their own QSO parties.  While I heard WA8KAN on 40 from the SF East Bay, unfortunately he
could not hear WQ6X calling him.

The All Asian webpage was a bit confusing as the browser title-bar labeled this year as the 60th running of A.A. whereas the web text correctly designated this as the 61st running of the event.

The goal for the All Asian contest is for us non-Asians to work as many Asian prefixes as we can throughout the 48 hour contest weekend.  For NX6T our 4 operators (N6CY, N6KI, N6NC & WQ6X) ended with a prefix count of 333 (190 unique) from our 878 QSOs, giving us a 294k point score.

Friday began things as a BiG disappointment.  By 06:00z only 58 QSOs made it to the 20 meter log.  By the time I took over (around 09:20z) N6KI had managed a total of 131 QSOs.  After a short stint
on 20 meters, I moved on down to 40 meters working one pile up after another.  More multipliers
were logged in those 3 hours than the rest of the contest.

Because this is an Asian contest, it makes a LoT of sense to check the Russian Letter Beacons on ~7.039 - in the middle of the 40-meter Cw band. 

I've recently written about these beacons:

[x] - Wassup with Those Mysterious Russian Letter Beacons?

[x] - Wassup with Those Mysterious Russian Letter Beacons? - Part 2

For the All Asian contest these beacons become important for tracking 40-meter propagation to Asia.

= The M-Beacon give us an idea of Propagation
    to UA9 / UA0.  Azimuth 330-Degrees

= The K-Beacon give us an idea of Propagation
    to UA0 / JA8.  Azimuth 300-Degrees

= The F-Beacon give us an idea of Propagation
    to BV / BY / JA / HL.  Azimuth 270-Degrees

This weekend the F / M / K beacons were heard in Fallbrook and the M / K beacons were heard in the
SF East Bay.


At one point I made a listen for the Letter Beacons on 7.508 hoping to check middle-east propagation; unfortunately, none were heard.  Then again, the Shorty-40 antenna mismatch @ 7.5mhz probably attenuated beacon signals significantly giving me a false indication of band openings to those areas. 
At 20:00z I gave a listen for the NCDXF beacons (14.100 & 21.150) looking for Asian propagation indications.  On 15 meters, nothing was heard and on 20 meters some IDIOT was transmitting RTTY
ZERO-BEAT with the 14.100 NCDXF beacon frequency - WTF is THAT all about?

80-meters was almost a no-show were it not for N6CY bagging 6 contacts after 12:00z Saturday morning.  We never checked 160 meters; probably just as well, considering the Stew Perry GiG
was going on at the time.

At 09:54z Sunday morning while running 20-meters the Cw band was obliterated by your friend
and mine - the Woodpecker (on about 13.950).  About the time I had enough of 20, the Woodpecker stopped.  (Note: earlier this year the Woodpecker was logged zero-beat with 6.996 - HuH?)

At 11:55z N6CY took over 40 meters so I could get some sleep.  At 20:00z I came back to STN-1
and began that almost-futile search for Asian stations.  When it's mid-afternoon in California,
in Asia, operators are either sleeping or beginning the commute to work (if they still do that). 
Making use of the DX-Maps helped get an idea of the band openings as they happened.

Of the 23 stations worked Sunday afternoon, 19 of those operators raged in age from 59 - 81. 
We DEFINATELY need to bring some young blood into the All Asian event.  Youth operators were:
UA9P (15), BY1CY(15), JO4FDC(16), JS2FLS(16), RK9Q(17) & the youngest OP JK1ACA(12). 
We also need more YL Op's. 
The 8 YL QSOs made were with: 7L3PFH, JF1UOX, JQ1ARQ, JH1ACA & JA6CNX.

When it was all over, it would seem that NX6T took 2nd place for North America

and 4th place worldwide in the Multi-Single category.  While I submitted WQ6X's

6-QSOs as a 20-meter log to the JARL contest committee, it will win no awards;

however it serves to keep the WQ6X callsign in next year's callsign files.

Did YOU work the All Asian Dx Cw contest?

Is NX6T or WQ6X in YOUR Log?