It looks like predictions of secondary solar cycle max are not going to occur. But still solid conditions during this edition of phone WPX.
No unexpected HW issues neither before, nor during the contest. SO2R setup was stable, but phone + WPX numbers in exchange is not a good mix for effective 2 radio operation.
10m only for worthy SA multipliers. 15m was in perfect shape, also solid NA rate on this band. 20m full of stations, solid Saturday evening NA run. 40m opening during Saturday morning did not work. Fortunately Sunday morning was better towards NA, then also last hour brought few more NA. Juicy EU pileup on Sunday morning, solid portion of new prefixes. 80m was plan B for low bands, when 40m collapsed. NA good opening on Sunday at 0300Z. 160m for few more QSOs, marginal participation, as usual.
40m is the most complicated challenge of SSB contesting. Being above 7125 kHz is the must. 75 kHz is almost nothing. I tried to work split under 7125 kHz during NA opening. Result: 0 (zero) NA after cca 20 minutes. 40m SSB was always hard rock. But now it was pure death metal. There aren’t many options: to kill or to be killed.
Nice to hear many young and YL voices. What is less nice is a lot of artificial sounded signals. Not only CQ, but also numbers, callsign and other responses. Not just one signal was unquestionably generated by some kind of AI.
A lot of guys had bad audio quality: too much bass, no higher frequencies. I had to reject one such guy after many tries, even though he was 59+… On the other hand: another one overwhelmed three much stronger signals, because of evidently took care about properly tuning his modulation.
Thanks to Ivo, S57AL for his P.S. note. I studied rules before the contest to find some 2026 news, but obviously not very consistently. Also e-mail invitation contained log deadline info… somewhere at line 18. Maybe rules changes should be announced in the first line of updated rules, using red colour and bold. Credit to CQ160 committee – in the case of unusual 2026 SSB date warning.
Overall: Still solid conditions. Decent result, good AVG (2,67) but few mults, despite mainly mults S&P on high bands.
Thanks for every QSO, looking forward to CW relax.
FINAL score: x xxx xxx
Category: SO AB HP
Rank: WW #xx EU #xx OM #x
RAW score:4 660 416
Category: SO AB HP
Rank: WW #71 EU #28 OM #3
Call: OM7K
Operator(s): OM7RU
Station: OM7RU
Class: SOAB HP
QTH: JN98OQ
Operating Time (hrs): 36:00
Location : Europe
Summary:
Band QSOs
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160: 58
80: 421
40: 687
20: 398
15: 315
10: 99
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Total: 1978 Prefixes: 899 Total Score:4,660,416
Club: Dozen Dashes Contest Club
Used equipments:
Yaesu FTDX101D
Kenwood TS-590SG
OM Power 3500A
ACOM 2000A
microHAMs: MK2R+, 2x Station Master, doubleTEN, ARCO
2x OM Power OM6BPF
DXLog
Antennas:
160m: Half Sloper @31,5m
80m: OptiBeam OB1-80 @34m
AD-3446 @31m
Cushcraft A4S @6,5m, fixed NA
40m: Inv V @20m
5 circle phased vertical RX array
73!
Riki, OM7RU/OM7K
www.tucek.sk/om7ru