WQ6X Wrangles a Wild CQ World-wide Contest

Based on recent previous year's activity, I possessed little hope that this year would be any
different; except that the Solar Flux Index (SFI) was 108 (during part of the weekend), instead of 69
all weekend last year.  We also DiD NoT have to endure the 16-hour internet outage for our last CQ W.W. GiG at the Fallbrook location; internet at the Anza location to my knowledge seems to be flawless.

While we had 7 operators (like last year), we ran a rather tight Multi-single operation, using Anza's STN-2 to run frequencies and S&P during slower periods.  This allowed operators to spend time at STN-1 hunting for multipliers on other bands.

In the CQ W.W. GiG, we receive two kinds of multiplier credit: Individual Countries & Zones 1 to 40.  The turnout this year seemed to be DOUBLE that of 2020, bringing considerably EASIER access to Zones 34 thru 40 (Y E S !!!) ; relatively difficult from the Waste Coast.  Being "the guy who never sleeps" (so says N6KI), I ran the 2am to 5am shift both mornings and the "dinner shift" both evenings.  In between those shifts, I found time to futz around putting 47 QSOS into the WQ6X/6 Concord LoG.  I spent the last hour hunting multipliers on STN-1 while N6KI put the wraps on things at STN-2.  Unfortunately, missing Zone-34 cost us a zone-sweep.

A new Post-IT not facility was installed on the computer for both stations.  This software update incorporates a Callsign Identification Box (CIB) so we always know who the main operator at each station is.  Being a Cw-only contest weekend, leveraging the ever-evolving stereo Cw facility @WQ6X helped sort-out pileup runs, spreading the calling stations into a more-or-less 160-degree arc around the listening experience (based on Cw pitch frequency).  Using the R-I-T control allows exact positioning of each station to a more copyable "location" in the listening experience. 
(This also gives me more knobs to twiddle - you know how much I love to twiddle knobs.)

This Cw contest was the year of the perplexing pandemoniac pileup experience.  At 20:30z on Sunday, I felt sorry for V73NS (Marshall Islands) as he tried to manage the most UNRULY pileup behavior in ALL my years playing around in radiosport.  He sent "/M ?" (meaning mobile station only) and everyone else BUT the mobile threw in their callsign.  He had to repeat the above EIGHT times until everyone STFU and he could make ONE contact.

The same thing happened with "6X?" - he had to repeat "6X?" NINE times until it was finally quiet enough that my puny 100 watt signal could be copied.  It does NO GooD for my signal to be 5-9-9 when the IDIOTS who don't listen (or don't care) are 25-db over S-9.  Later I heard the same operator ignorance with PJ7/G4XXX on the island of Sint. Martin.  What these IDIOTS don't realize is that their STUPIDITY wastes EVERYBODY's time.  Think of the DX station as akin to a net control operator.  They are willing to follow the directives of a net control station, yet find it appropriate behavior to walk all over a DX station, ruining it for EVERYBODY.  (After the contest they complain that the DX station was a LiD - when in fact it is THEY who are the LiD operators.)

A distinct advantage to double the participation is that not only where more zones and dozens more countries active over last year's contest, zones normally offering little participation gave us several operators this year; 80, 10 & 160 meters were surprisingly well populated.

For WQ6X's Concord operation, working into Europe on 40-meters was quite a surprise; evidently the ladder line retrofit for the 8JK Cobra array made a difference.  Only once did shack-RFI take out the Toshiba Dynadock port replicator.

Each contest event run from the SF East Bay offers the opportunity to thoroughly test the hardware configuration and the contest logging software (N1MM+ in this case).  It always seems like there is some aspect of the operation which can be easily improved.  While only 47 QSOs made it to the WQ6X contest log, running as a dual-OP brought WQ6X's GiG total to 115 events thus far for the 2021 contest calendar.

Left for this year are the ARRL 160 & 10 meter contests, the final Stew Perry 160 GiG,
and of course, the Canadian RAC Winter contest to end the year.

DiD YOU participate in the 2021 CQ W.W. Cw contest?

Is WQ6X or NX6T in YOUR LoG?