The official results of the 2019 CQ WW DX Contest SSB have been published. We competed in the most demanding category, the multi-operator single-transmitter high power (MS HP) category.
CQ WW SSB is the world’s most popular amateur radio competition and is held every year, on the last weekend of October.
The One radio category is more of a myth than reality, as what it actually means, among other rules, is that only one signal can be transmitted on the air at any one time (excluding the signal transmitted by the multiplier station). In practice, this means that “pro’s” have more radios, even often up to five! This, of course, requires several technological innovations, such as bandpass filters, more antennas, radios and amplifiers, complex & sophisticated systems for changing antennas, synchronization devices that ensure there is only one signal on-air at any time, etc.
In practice, this means that “pro’s” have more radios, even often up to five!
We, at SZ1A, now use three radios for MS participation with three operators staffing the positions constantly on-air for 48 hours. Of course, we didn’t always use three radios. This helps our score improve year after year. Let’s look at the evolution of our score in the chart below from 1994 to today (in the years missing we were in another category).
So, in 2019, in the most recent competition, we came in at 49th place in the world, which is the best rank we have ever achieved! Note that the raw score alone fluctuates from contest to contest due to propagation conditions which vary, and almost always is not meaningful on its own as an absolute number. While our rank, which is relative to the performance of all stations that competed, is what really matters.
We came in at 49th place in the world, which is the best rank we have ever achieved!
At the same time, we won 1st place in Greece, something we have achieved many times, and 34th place in Europe. In addition to our exceptional support team (Thanasis SV1CQK & Kostas SV1CQG), many congratulations go to the Operators who took part and are:
- John – SV1GE
- Kostas – SV1CQN
- Panos – SV1HKH
- Panagiotis – SV8PMM
- Panos – SV4QNP
- Dimitris – SV1CIB
- Andrew – SV1DKD
- Asterios – SV2HQL
- Giannis – SV1PMQ
- Georgia – SV1QXU
