Posts Tagged ‘CW contesting’
CQ WW WPX CW results
June 1st, 2026 | 
Author:
This CQ WW WPX contest was my first major contest in a few years, as we are usually away on vacation and I end up missing it.
This year, my best bands were 20m during the daytime and early evening, before moving over to 40m later in the evening. Overall, the early evening and nighttime hours seemed to be the most productive, with both 20m and 40m really opening up.
During the daytime, I just could not get a good run going. At times, it felt like I was simply calling “CQ Contest” into the ether with very little response. Because of that, this contest turned into mostly search-and-pounce for me, with only the occasional attempt at running.
Throughout the daytime hours, I kept VFO A on 20m and VFO B on either 15m or, at times, 10m, constantly watching for openings. When conditions looked promising, I would jump down to those bands and was able to pick up additional contacts on 15m and 10m. Most of my 10m contacts ended up being with South America.
One thing that definitely kept me in the radio chair was the weather. It was quite chilly here, with daytime highs reaching only 8°C and evening temperatures dropping to around 2°C. In fact, I even had to break out the portable heater I use to keep my hands warm. I find that when my hands get cold, they just do not work as well on the keyboard when entering call signs and serial numbers.
This was also the first major contest for my new Icom 7610, and I am happy to say it performed flawlessly throughout the event.
ARRL DX CW contest
ARRL DX CW contest
ARRL DX CW contest
CQ world wide DX CW contest 2025
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| Nice to see this type of action on 10m. |
Once again, the CQ WW CW contest has come to an end. Although the conditions were not as favorable as last year, it was still a fantastic event. Some highlights included contacting fellow blogger Bas, who was using his new contest call PA6G on 20m, as well as reaching ZD7VJ on St. Helena Island and VP8NO on the Falkland Islands.
I was pleasantly surprised to connect with many South American stations on 10m on Sunday afternoon. I’m pleased to report there were no station issues at all—everything ran very smoothly.
CQ world wide DX CW contest 2025
|
| Nice to see this type of action on 10m. |
Once again, the CQ WW CW contest has come to an end. Although the conditions were not as favorable as last year, it was still a fantastic event. Some highlights included contacting fellow blogger Bas, who was using his new contest call PA6G on 20m, as well as reaching ZD7VJ on St. Helena Island and VP8NO on the Falkland Islands.
I was pleasantly surprised to connect with many South American stations on 10m on Sunday afternoon. I’m pleased to report there were no station issues at all—everything ran very smoothly.
The warm fuzzy feeling.
CW contesting is a consistent growth of skills from learning code, increasing code speed, learning what your contesting program can do, and the list goes on. My latest endeavor is to learn touch typing of my function keys or F1-12, in the case of N1MM+, these are 12 function keys that allow you to send contest macros. I know 12 sounds impressive, but honestly, I only use about 6 consistently, as for the other function keys, I can allow myself to look down at the keyboard. The 6 keys I wanted to learn to touch type are F1 CQ, F2 exchange, F4 my call, F5 his call, F10 log, and a non-F key, the pause key, which in N1MM+ is used when operating SO2V (single op 2 VFO) to flip back and forth, which VFO you are transmitting on. 
Fuzzy stickers on F keys
Over the years, I have learned that with touch typing, it is very important to use the same finger for the same key. Changing up which finger you use only confuses the learning curve, and touch typing will not happen.
Let's get back to the F keys and my "method" I use, but before that, my preferred keyboard is the XT keyboard. This is a full-sized keyboard, with mechanical keys and the F keys have spaces between the escape key and F1key, space between F4-F5 and between F8-F9. Let me explain why these spaces help me out with touch typing. Without looking at the keyboard, my left hand ring finger moves up to the F key area and finds the space between the escape key and F1, the CQ macro key. When I do that, I move my ring finger on top of the F1 CQ key.
If I want the F2 exchange key again, my ring finger moves up to the space, then onto the F1 key. My middle finger is now over the F2 key and will drop on top of the F2 exchange key. For the F4, my call macro key, again, my left hand moves up and my pointer finger finds the space between the F4 and F5 key. This finger moves to the left to the F4 key.
It's the right hand's turn to get an F key workout. This is where the warm fuzzies come into play. In the heat of the contest battle, there are times I need to send a partial call due to fading or multiple callers coming back to my CQ CONTEST call. This is the job of the F5 key and a key I am still learning its position regarding my pointer finger on my right hand. What I do is, on the F5 key, I put a nice fuzzy furniture sticker there. Without looking, I can place my pointer finger close to the F5 key and move it along, and when I feel the fuzzy sticker, I am there. I do the same for the F10 log key as well. By always using the same finger over time, I can remove the fuzzy sticker and hit the desired key each time. I used this method to learn the F1, F2 and F4 keys.
There is then the lonely pause key that swaps between VFOA and B for SO2V operation. It also has a fuzzy on it, and the key is at the end of a row with a large space on the right. I feel for the space and then move my hand to the left and find the fuzzy.
In conclusion, it takes some time for your brain and fingers to figure out the F key adventure. If you want to learn this, it's very important to stick with the same finger, understand that you're going to mess up and as with everything, practice.
