Another CQWPX CW contest has come and gone and this year for me it was a parttime effort as the weather was great here and many outdoor "Stuffs" had to be done. I was shocked to see 10m open and I was able to bag 7 contacts there. During my first leg of the contest on Saturday, I found it very hard to contact any Europian stations. I did make one into Ireland and that was it. The second leg of the contest was Sunday and it seemed that Europe had opened up just fine and I was making DX contacts. The only issue during the short time I was taking part in the contest was the
XIT issue which I posted about a few days ago. The other issue was right at the get-go of the contest, I was not able to get the N1MM CW macros to key up the Icom 7610. I have been working QSO parties
Win4Icom rig control software looks after N1MM+ as 3rd party software. I do this because I can control the 7610 via my mouse using Win4Icom software. So things like band changes, fine filter adjustments, APF on and off and so on. I did not want to play with the issue for too long as I was not really going to be in the contest for all that long. I ended up going back to old school operating.....well almost old school no paper and pencil yet. I shut down Win4Icom and configured the N1MM+ com port to talk directly to the 7610. In minutes I was up and running again.
without issue and not an issue! Most of the time I get on the radio the day before a contest and test out the rig, software and keyer to make sure all is well.....guess what I failed to do the day before this time? My setup is as follows, I use
Below is the contest breakdown:
20m 73 contacts
15m 20 contacts
10m 7 contacts
Total 100
Score 18,778
WPX 83
CQ WPX CW contest summary.
2 June 2020 | by 
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Like most contests, I just play around looking for either new countries or new countries on specific bands. 10M being open on Saturday was definitely a surprise and allowed me to work a number of new states plus Brazil. Since I spent most of my active ham life in apartments and condos, mostly pre-cable TV, 10M was never a good option due to TVI so, even though we’re at the trough of the sun spot cycle, most everything I work on 10M is new for me.
As for the rest of the weekend, with so many people staying home due to Covid 19, domestic QRM was awful and hearing DX was often a bit of a struggle. Nonetheless, I worked plenty of European and Caribbean stations with intermittent activity throughout the 48 hours of activity. Beautiful weather in Vermont and plenty to do around the house filled most of my weekend hours. Hamming had to take second place.
Good evening Art thanks for taking the time to read the post and leaving a comment, Yes 10m being open was a very rare event for me. My contacts on 10m were all state side. Great to hear you made a contact to South America. I, too, lived in Condos and town homes, so I was limited with what I could do on ham radio. I’m retired now and am a home….a very same home, so I just have an EndFed antenna up that is amazing for me considering the compromise antennas I have had in the past.
73 Art and have a great what is left of the week.
Mike
VE9KK