WQ6X Cartwheels around Canada Day

Canada Day feels to the Canadians more-or-less the way July 4th feels to the YANKS. 

The difference is that North of our U.S. border, the Canadians celebrate their day with a 24-hour
radiosport GiG, and we don't.  

The July 1st Canadian RAC contest is very simple - anyone in the world can work anyone else in the world, adding 2-points to their eventual ending score.  

If the stations we work happen to be Canadian stations, we receive 10-points; 20-points if they happen to be an RAC station (VE7RAC, VE2RAC, etc.).  We collect multipliers for every unique Canadian prefix on each band added to the log.

The RAC contest exchange is very basic:

• Canadian stations send: 5NN + Province ABBV.
• non-Canadians send: 5NN + Serial-number

Overall, there were probably more USA stations calling "CQ RAC" than there were actual
Canadians added to the log.  With the Solar Flux index (SFI) in the low-to-mid 90's, 20-meters
was the volume-band.  Considerable effort was put into adding only 25 15-meter QSOs to the log.  Despite a number of "CQ RAC" calls, 10-meters was a complete no-GO, both Thursday AND Friday.

Because multipliers are so important, it is important to understand the importance of which Canadian area (W, N/W, N/E &East) each Canadian multiplier associates with.  To make for easier identification, the BLOG Entry previous to this one was headed by a VE1AAA Callsign Map lifted from the internet.

Out of PURE-laziness, I made the decision to run Cw only.  From the reports I have read, overall,
Ssb was largely a BUST.  The RAC GiG does NoT do RTTY, making it a single-mode operation for WQ6X.  That allowed me to pipe Jazz on Pandora as a background flow.  At one point, I streamed classic "RUSH" music - appropriate EH?

The medium-activity of the RAC contest made it possible to test-run a number of cable changes
made to the audio system in recent weeks.  Of course, Stereo-CW is still the focus of all WQ6X
Cw operations.  A pair of Autek QF-1A filter units can be found at my portable operation in Concord,
as well as the remote setup in use from my Alameda office.

In addition to the RAC GiG itself, it's nice to run an occasional radiosport GiG on a Thursday evening into Friday afternoon (giving me a legitimate excuse to take Friday off).  As quickly as the RAC GiG came, it quickly became a distant memory, 2 days later.

DiD YOU play in the Canadian RAC Contest?

Is WQ6X in YOUR Log?