WQ6X Contest Activities: WQ6X Blasts from the Past: a LooK back at a Look Back

Posting Blast from the Past Blogs from time to time makes it easier to look back years later recollecting about past experiences with upcoming radiosport event. In Sept. of 2019, for the helluvit, I published a compendium of all the Blast From the Past Blogs up to that point. ([CLICK HERE]
to read that.) Over a period of 7 years, only 8 B-F-P Blog entries were written.

As a research project, it was determined that since 2019 19 B-F-P Blogs have been posted
on all manner of differing topics. Check out this list:

[X] Blast from the Past: California QSO Party (CQP)
[X] WQ6X Blast from the Past: ARRL Dx Phone Contest
[X] WQ6X Blast from the Past: ARRL Dx Phone Contest => Part 2
[X] WQ6X Blast from the Past: CQ WPX RTTY
[X] WQ6X Blast from the Past: CQ WPX RTTY - Part 2
[X] BLASTS from the Past: The WPX Weird Prefix Cw Contest
[X] BLASTS from the Past: The WPX Weird Prefix Ssb Contest
[X] BLAST from the Past: External Audio Filters I have Known
[X] BLAST from the Past: Memories of Marconi Memorial
[X] BLAST from the Past: NAQP Ssb Contest
[X] BLAST from the Past: CQ W.W. RTTY Contest
[X] BLAST from the Past: CQ W.W. RTTY Contest - Part 2
[X] BLAST from the PAST: QRP Reconsidered
[X] A WQ6X as W6J Retrospective
[X] Blasts from the PAST: Worked All Europe (WAE) Cw contest
[X] Blasts from the PAST: End of August Contests
[X] BLASTs From the Past: Cinco de Contest
[X] BLASTS from the PAST: Stereo CW and it's many Variants.
[X] Blast from the Past: California QSO Party (CQP) - Part 2
[X] BLAST from the PAST: 2024 Radiosport in Review

wOw! Whatta buncha STUFF?!!

Blast from the Past: California QSO Party (CQP) - Parts 1 and 2

Next to the ARRL November Sweepstakes (SS) GiGs, the California QSO Party (CQP)
is my favorite domestic radiosport event. Since 2000 I have NoT missed somehow participating during the 1st weekend of October event. For county hunters, it is realistic
and feasible that you can work all 58 California counties in ONE (count 'em "1") WeeKEnd;
one state done with 49 to go towards your USA-CA (Worked All U.S. Counties) Award.
CQP is so much one of my favorite events that 2 Blast from the Past Blogs have been
written about this event. Before long, it will be time for Part 3.
BLASTS from the Past: The WPX Weird Prefix Cw & Ssb Contests

What I specifically LIKE about the CQ WPX (Weird Prefix) contest, is THAT - WEIRD Prefixes. Of course, my "WQ6" callsign certainly qualifies as a WEIRD prefix. Additionally, it is certainly No accident that I define the N1MM FK-12 Key to send out some form of "W-E-I-R-D" message when people do WEIRD things.
WQ6X Blast from the Past: CQ WPX RTTY - Parts 1 and 2
The WPX RTTY Contest is one of my overall favorite events - I don't have to copy
Morse code, nor do I have to strain my voice. I can often experience the RTTY tones
as synchronistically soothing.
WQ6X Blast from the Past: ARRL Dx Phone Contest - Parts 1 and 2
Overall, for me, the ARRL DX Phone contest is usually, overall, a ho-Hummer.
Then again, coming to each iteration of this event found me exploring new ideas to
alleviate what I call Ssb-Boredumb. It is from this, the Stereo-SSB concept was perfected.
40-plus year-old technology (the Autek QF-1A) still outperforms most DSP technology built-in
to today's transceivers. The proof of perfection came with setting a Southwest Division record
in 2024.
BLAST from the Past: External Audio Filters I have Known
Long before I began seriously working on the Stereo-CW concept, I added a number
of different analog and DSP filters to the audio lines, experimenting with the different combinations that eventually became the Stereo Audio concept.
BLAST from the Past: Memories of Marconi Memorial
Every year, the Marconi Memorial radiosport offers outstanding opportunities and every
year, it becomes a Ho-Hummer. Nevertheless, I find time in between the other GiGs that weekend to play around and submit a log. At the very least, it adds another entry to the number of contests submitted to 3830Scores.com.
BLAST from the Past: NAQP Ssb Contest
The North American QSO Party (NAQP) makes for a GREAT introduction to domestic
radiosport contesting. With the exchange of NAME and STATE, it is EASY and FUN.
Back in the day, I used to join the multi-OP crew live in Fallbrook. In recent years the
current crew has been running REMOTE from ANZA.
BLAST from the Past: CQ W.W. RTTY Contest
My first introduction to serious RTTY came from the encouragement provided by N6GEO.
It wasn't long before I found my groove and we began making high scores in RTTY contests, highlighted by our appearance on St. Croix for the Jan-2014 RTTY-RU contest, operating as WP2/WQ6X. Around our 1st-Place (worldwide) win, I spent time running pileups from 80 to 10 meters (Ssb and Cw), including the WARC bands. From an amateur radio standpoint, it was
a complete success.
BLAST from the Past: CQ W.W. RTTY Contest - Part 2
In recent years, running RTTY has largely been a remote running affair.
Then again, because the FT-1000mp and FT-2000 can run FULL-Duty RTTY,
running RTTY live is still a viable approach. Even more recently is running the above transceivers by way of the RigExpert unit to accomplish PTT keying for running the K3/0
and K3/0-Minit control units to make RTTY transmissions remotely, even though the tones
are generated locally.
BLAST from the PAST: QRP Reconsidered
Beginning in 2023, WQ6X found it more imaginative and exciting to run as many events using QRP as can be successfully accomplished. Running remote from Ramona and Anza makes it possible to leverage hilltop QTH's as well as the antenna configurations that go with them.
A WQ6X as W6J Retrospective

Over the years, I have registered the W6J callsign, mainly for running variations on
the Japanese JIDX DX contest, while also joining NX6T in one of our 1st-place finishes.
Last year the rules for JIDX were changed, no longer allowing me to do both. Now, I
either join NX6T or else run as a Single-OP station. The JIDX Ssb contest in November
runs concurrent with the WAE RTTY contest, to enable running BOTH during the same weekend.
Blasts from the PAST: Worked All Europe (WAE) Cw contest
Due to the sending of QTC messages, the Worked All Europe is the most complex of all radiosport contests - even more than the November Sweepstakes. Thanks to the Ctrl-Z
capability built into the N1MM software, sending QTC messages is about as easy as it
will ever get.
Blasts from the PAST: End of August Contests
The last weekend in August presents us with a number of disparate events. In some cases,
I ran the same event as WQ6X (from EB section) and NX6T (in the SDG section). In all cases,
the goal was to up the number of 3830 Score events submitted.
BLASTs From the Past: Cinco de Contest
The 1st weekend in May I call Cinco De Contest, running for State QSO Parties and the Italian ARI contest. I have won two 1st-place plaques in the 7QP event, one for LP and more recently one for QRP.
BLASTS from the PAST: Stereo CW and it's many Variants.
While I have written about Stereo-Cw and its variants, I finally got around to writing a BLAST Blog about my audio filter discoveries since the original Blogs, which now include Stereo-Ssb and Stereo-RTTY. Despite the fact I am a Californian, it is no secret that CQP is the most populous state QSO Party of them all. Running for 30 continuous hour
BLAST from the PAST: 2024 Radiosport in Review
Ending 2024, I did something new by briefly reviewing the contest activity for the entire year, beginning with the RTTY-RU in January, followed by the NAQP GiGs during the 2nd and 3rd weekends. The above graphic demonstrates contest activity from 2020 - 2024.

WQ6X Contest Activities

Thursday, March 6, 2025

WQ6X Blasts from the Past: a LooK back at a Look Back - Part 2

No comments:

Post a Comment