WQ6X Blast from the Past: ARRL Dx Phone Contest => Part 2

While reviewing material for a flurry of "Blast from the Past" Blog entries, it occurred to me that during the current decade (6 years), the ARRL DX Phone contest has taken on a radically different operating form; from NX6T Division-winning Multi-OP operations, all the way to Single-OP QRP GiGs.
([CLICK HERE] to read Part 1 of this series.)

CZECH DiS OuT!:

• [X] (2020) - WQ6X Joins NX6T Dual-OP'ing another ad-HOC ARRL Dx Ssb GiG
• [X] (2021) - WQ6X joins NX6T remotely for another ARRL Dx Ssb Contest
• [X] (2022) - WQ6X Squeezes in Another ARRL Dx Ssb Contest GiG
• [X] (2023) - WQ6X Works a Wonderfully WEIRD Dx Contest
• [X] (2024) - WQ6X Works a WOBBLY QRP ARRL Dx Ssb Contest
• [X] (2025) - (Coming Soon)

(2o2o) - DUAL-OP's as WQ6X & NX6T

This event was from back in the daze where we ran Multi-OP (onsite and remote) while I managed
to put some time in as WQ6X running the modest antenna setup from the Concord California - East Bay (EB) section.  This was one of those contest years when the intentional 40-meter QRM was RAMPANT from many sources, including Ssb hecklers and random RTTY in the phone bands,
all of which followed me around as I changed frequency - proving that it was hardly an accident.

This was also the year I paid more attention to the ~7.039 Russian military beacons, offering indications of propagation favoring the Asian aspects of the globe.

(2o21) - WQ6X joins NX6T remotely for another ARRL Dx Ssb Contest

For the 2021 ARRL DX Ssb contest, the decision was made to run completely from my Alameda office rather than making the drive to the Concord QTH only to run remotely from there.  Unfortunately, the P-T-T switch in Concord, not my office.  Thanks to a leftover pill, a simple pushbutton switch and
a chopped cable from a previously failed P-T-T switch was all I needed to make it all work.

(2o22) - WQ6X Squeezes in Another ARRL Dx Ssb Contest GiG

This was the 1st ARRL DX Ssb contest run with the newly added FT-2000 at the
Concord QTH.  It was also around this time that the Art of Stereo Ssb was perfected,
important for a worldwide voice competition.  ([CLICK HERE] for the original Stereo Ssb
Blog.)  More was written about Stereo Ssb later in 2022 and even more in 2023 and 2024.
When it was all over, NX6T took 1st-place for Orange (ORG) section while WQ6X took 2nd-place
for East Bay (EB) section from the SF East Bay area - NoT bad for solar storm HiTs all weekend.

(2o23) - WQ6X Works a Wonderfully WEIRD Dx Contest

For the 2023 ARRL DX Ssb GiG, I was back to dual-OP running from Anza and East Bay
(EB) section.  The BiG problem was internet outages in Anza making running NX6T remotely
a considerable challenge.  The upside for WQ6X was more time to run on 40-meters from the
Concord location.

(2o24) - WQ6X Works a WOBBLY QRP ARRL Dx Ssb Contest

For this Ssb GiG, I accomplished two goals.  I perfected the Stereo-SSB concept making for amazingly coherent voice decoding.  It could be argued that is/was a major component in taking
a 1st-place QRP win for the Southwest Division.  The above picture contains all the details behind the operation.

Bottom Line:  The last five years of the ARRL DX Phone contest have been thru some utterly amazing contortions.  The REAL Question is how to once again leverage running QRP to chase the OTHER QRP category for the Southwest Division.  STaY TuNeD!