Why All Asian is STILL Alright With Me

While NoT necessarily my favorite radiosport contest, the All Asian GiG is one of the earliest competitions I've ever engaged in; beginning back in my General Class days as WA6LKB. 

Today I would rate All Asian Cw in my Top-10 list of radiosport competitions.

As detailed in the Blast from the Past write up, All Asian has given me the opportunity to operate from different venues, including: office buildings, a campsite on Mt. Abel, N6GEO's cabin in Twain Harte, sailboats, NX6T in Fallbrook and various portable setups in the SF East Bay.

Around this time last year a pair of BLOG entries was made about the All Asian GiG

(the above picture is from this GiG):

• [x] - WQ6X Blast from the PAST: All Asian Cw Contest
• [x] - WQ6X Triple-OPs the All Asian DX Contest via Maritime Mobile

As contests go, the All Asian exchange is a no-brainer: a Signal Report (most always 5-9 or 5-9-9) and your Age (YL's send "00").  For non-Asian stations, multipliers take the form of unique callsign prefixes.  In recent years some rather "exotic" Asian prefixes have made the scene in this contest.

While I love playing in the All Asian GiGs, my BIGGEST BEEF is:
NoT ENUF ASIAN STATIONS PLAY in THEIR OWN CONTEST!!

• On the "Left Coast" we "should" have the easiest access to the Asian stations just a
  "skip across the pound".  All too often, what should be a "pipeline" to Asia comes up short.  Beacons often indicate wide-open conditions to Asia, yet few if any Asian signals are actually heard.
• During the last 8 to 10 hours of the contest, Asians are either sleeping or "driving to work"; certainly NoT on the radio.  Most stations still on the air are age 65+; usually retired so having to work is not an issue.

Not only are there NoT enough Asian stations playing in this GiG, noticeably lacking are operators
20 - 30 years old and younger as well as YL ('00") OPs.  This situation should be given considerable attention; then again, I've been writing about this problem for years and the operators keep getting older with virtually no younger operators to counterbalance the age increase.

In recent weeks I've been reinvestigating the Russian Single Letter Beacons (SLB's).

• [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.

Unfortunately, most 40-meter Cw operators are unaware of the Single Letter Beacons (and 40-meter Ssb operators don't care one way or the other). 
7.039 is right in the middle of the NA Cw band.
For the upper bands, the NCDXF Beacons on
14.100, 21.150 & 28.200 can give us a look at
Asia and the surrounding Oceania areas.

Of course the Reverse Beacon Network (RBN) can also be utilized for propagation purposes - point the antenna to the desired geographical area (ex: Asia) put out a "CQ AA Test" call and then check for RBN spotting messages.

Unfortunately, the Solar Flux is back down in the doldrums.  While we've had nearly no solar storms in the month of June, an SFI of 67 means we will be relying on 160, 80 & 40 meters for the long hauls.

While the 20-meter openings have been on the "improve" this month, most of those openings have been more to Europe (with Oceania off the back) than anywhere else.

This means we will have to be more resourceful.


My goal is to dual-OP this weekend; remotely with NX6T and single-OP as WQ6X from the SF
East Bay, once I repair the rope to re-hoist the center insulators of the 8JK Inverted Vee @ W7AYT (the wires are draped over the trees lying on the ground).

Are YOU going to be participating in this year's All Asian Dx Cw contest.

If you are an Asian station, LooK for NX6T and WQ6X on the bands.
If you are NoT an Asian station; then, you should not call me.