Southern California Contest Club
CQ WPX CW: May 30-31 ARRL International Digital Contest: June 6-7 ARRL June VHF Contest: June 13-15
CQ WPX CW: May 30-31 ARRL International Digital Contest: June 6-7 ARRL June VHF Contest: June 13-15
A Collection of Past SCCC News Stories (Newest to Oldest)
Monthly News (SCCCORE - SoCal Contest Club Operations, Results and Enlightenments)
March 2026
It's also WPX SSB month! Over the years, the WPX contests have become very, very popular, with large turnouts from around the world. Everyone can work everyone else on each band, seemingly providing us with an endless pool of potential contacts and loads of multipliers (a prefix only counts for a multiplier once in the contest, however). There is a strategy to consider though. Points are higher on 40, 80 and 160, and are higher for working DX (including other North American DXCC entities) versus working USA stations. And remember, single operators can only operate a maximum of 36 hours of the 48 hour contest. Off times must be a minimum of 60 minutes during which no QSO is logged. Multi-ops get the full 48 hours. Full rules are found here.
more
We know that Jim, N6TJ and David, N6AN will again be in Hawaii doing multi-multi with the KH6J group (KH7U K1ZM NH7T N6TV N6TJ KX7M N6AN N5OT). Anyone else? We are still near the peak of Sunspot Cylce 25 although the sun has been temperamental these days. Should be fun regardless!
As of this writing, we are a little over a month before the 2026 Santa Maria DX and Contesters Convention. Are you going? Have you registered? Contest Dinner? Reserved a hotel room? (There are two hotels with special rates--click on the Santa Maria Convention logo for more info). N6TJ and N6AA have worked hard to make this an enjoyable Convention. A long list of programs and events are regularly updated on the Events page. XYL or OM not a ham? There are plenty of things to do in the area and in nearby Solvang, not to mention the surrounding area. A couple of links to extra curricular activities are at the bottom of the Hotel page. Hope to see you there!
February 7, 2026. An Italian restaurant in Vista, California. Nine Southern California contesters and DXers met for lunch. It wasn't an official SCCC meeting but brought back some good memories. Thank you, Jim, N6TJ for getting us out with now 95-year-old Bob Roaney, K6RR who is still quite sharp! Yes, there was pizza on the menu just like in the old days of SCCC meetings (remember the post-TRW Swap Meet meetings?). But only one of us had pizza this time. The rest of us sampled the well stocked-lunch menu at Ciao Ristorante Italiano. Yours truly drove right by the place the first time arriving thanks to my usually but not always accurate in-vehicle navigation. And found it hard to turn around to go back but eventually succeeded and found the gang at the restaurant. At the get together, I asked Jim how he had found this place (he lives in Yorba Linda, a fair distance from Vista!). He used good old TripAdvisor and found it to be rated the number one Italian restaurant in Vista (which btw, is where K6RR lives these days. Vista, not the restaurant). Food? Very good. Service? Very good. Prices? Very good. Portions? OMG, many of us took home boxes to eat for dinner that night! Social and reminiscing plus catching up? Excellent! Many of the group had each other much more often than I had. Some were new introductons to me. The majority I knew but had not seen personally since the 1980s! I think some did not even recognize me after all these years, but fortunately, I had on a shirt with my callsign. Hi. Present were N6TJ, W6YA, NE6I, N6CW, K6AR, K6RR, W6YI, W6MKB and N0RR. A good time was had by all. (Two others who had planned to attend could not make it last minute, N6AA and N6MJ--missed you guys!>. We SCCCers perhaps need to do quarterly luncheons going forward. What say? Oh P.S. Smack me on the wrist! I failed to get even ONE picture of our gathering! Next time!
The CQWW DX SSB results are out. A record number of logs were received, 10,576! The write up can be found here. Scores and other details can be found here.
The September, 2025 NA Sprint CW contest results have also been published. Congrats to Marko, N5ZO for turning in one of only three Golden Logs (100% error free)! He placed 7th overall in the final standings. Ron, WQ6X was running some great antennas and placed third in the QRP category. Our SCCC #1 team (N5ZO, K6ZH, N6MJ, VY2TT, and AC6T) placed fourth in the team competition. According to the article, activity was about the same as the previous September but down 25% from February, 2025. Apparently several folks have questioned: "Should we think about making the Spring a 3-hour event?" That would be a radical change. Article and full results can be found here.
And the August, 2025 NAQP CW results are out. Dan, N6MJ finished sixth in the Single Op Unassisted category while MarkO, N5ZO finished seventh in the Assisted group. Ron, WQ6X took second in the Single Op Assisted QRP category. The SCCC #1 team finished ninth in this one. The article and line scores have not yet been published on NCJWeb but are available in the February/March issue of NCJ.
Also, the 2026 CQ WPX RTTY Contest raw results have been published. These are before log checking. Check them out here.
The World Wide Radio Operators Foundation (WWROF) has assumed stewardship for WRTC.info, the website of the World Radio Team Championship, the event that many of us think of as the Olympics of amateur radio contesting. From the WWROF website, "WWROF will provide continuity for the long-running, community-built website that preserves information and archives from WRTC events across more than three decades of radiosport history." WWROF is headed by a who's who in contesting.
A couple of items from the February 18 edition of the ARRL Contest Update... For the new contesters among us,
"New Contesters: Signal Reports
For major contests that require a signal report to be sent as part of an exchange, just send 59 or 599. You might think “huh, that’s not really a signal report!” and you’d be mostly right — it’s probably not an accurate signal report. You still have to send it. Contest sponsors, in general, do not check sent signal reports vs. received signal reports."
And this:
"Rubber-Clocking — Changing the logged time of contacts to conform with contest rules. Do not do this, it’s against the rules. Log the contact when you make it. With modern logging software it should never be necessary to change the time for any contacts in a contest log."
As mentioned above, the ARRL DX CW contest took place last month. Friday evening and Saturday conditions were pretty decent according to most. Sunday went into the tank pretty much with an SFI of only 110 and K index at 4 or 5. Here are some comments from 3830. Bill, N6RV called Sunday conditions a "wet blanket" with no Europeans and no real opening until noon. Dana, K6NR called it a great contest and he worked it longer than usual. He thought conditions were pretty good except on 10 meters on Sunday. He had very strong signals from JA on all bands. Dave, K6FA did a single band 10 meter operation and said conditions weren't good enough to get into Europe. Ken, K6LA operated VY2TT remotely from L.A. The good news was that Murphy didn't visit PEI but the bad news was that he did visit L.A. For the first time, there was a power outage in the shack. He thinks he caused it when he brought in the toaster oven to the shack, said Ken. That aside, he said that when 20 and 15 meters opened to Europe on Saturday morning, the pileups were so thick that it killed his rate. On Sunday, he couldn't buy a pileup.
Jim, W6YA went single band 10 meters and expects the band won't be much fun next year. Like others noted, Sunday was very poor on the band with signals weak and the over the pole opening never happening. And then it got worse. Two power poles started emitting S-7 noise, covering up all but the Caribbean and Central and South America. He spent most of the rest of the day chasing the poles down to report to San Diego Gas and Electric. Dennis, N6KI played around S&P and recorded just over 900 Q's doing so. Like others, he reported poor conditions on Sunday. Bill, W8QZA (W6QU) reported the same. He was again QRP and said his best contact was finding TT1GD calling CQ way up on 15m. Noise levels were low on 40 and 80, and he managed eight Q's with Japan on the band. No EU on 40 but he did log CR3DX and ED8X. Bruce, WA7BNM was single band 15 and experienced great conditions into Europe on Saturday morning. However, conditions were virtually non-existent on Sunday.
Bill, N7VM almost threw in the towel Friday night due to power line noise but that improved greatly by Saturday. He said conditions were better than expected that day but Sunday was a slog. He tried a different strategy this year of taking several short two hour breaks instead of longer ones. This allowed him to catch the Saturday opening on 20 meters to Europe. Mike, W4EF did the contest remote. He focused on BIC and when things got uncomfortable, he imagined the mindset of a marathon runner to push through. Mike logged 1,386 contacts for a score of just over 1.2 million points. Sounds like the BIC worked out! Kurt, W6PH was handicapped for this contest. Wet snow earlier in the week froze everything and his antennas were no higher than 15 feet (he usually raises them on Tuesday or Wednesday prior but was unable to so so this time). He was going to skip the contest but decided to give it a go. He was pleasantly surprised at how well the lowered antennas played! ...to the tune of 1,400+ contacts and 1.25 million points! He mostly did S&P and avoided the big pileups. Like others have said above, conditions were in the toilet on Sunday. No EU on 10 save for a couple of weak EAs. 15 was also weak with only a few EUs logged. He had a nice JA run during the last two hours of the contest on the three high bands. Despite the conditions and low antennas, he had a lot of fun and is glad he jumped in.
Jim, K6ZH was limited time-wise but figured he better take advantage of good conditions to Europe on 10 and 15 meters while we on the west coast still can. It kind of worked except that Sunday was no bueno. His best EU run was actually on 40 meters Friday evening! "20m was still open at 06Z on Sunday- *very* fluttery, but loud, EU; and a ton of JAs. I also had a big JA run on 15m toward the end of the contest on Sunday afternoon." Warren, KN6ZZI made his first CW QSOs since becoming a ham, other than a few practice Q's. He says he learned a lot! Tim, N6GP did a personal best in this contest, logging 907 QSOs to beat his previous best (2014) of 710. He had good runs into Europe on 15 meters Saturday morning but 40 was rough that night. Sunday morning was terrible.
----------
I hope it goes without saying, please DO submit your scores toward the SCCC to the contest committees! We appreciate all scores big and small! And please do join us on an SCCC team when we call out for volunteers. Again, scores big and small are all good. Thanks...
ATTN: SCCC members! Have you registered for the 2026 Santa Maria DX and Contesters Convention? Do you have your SCCC member badge to wear to the event? Links to both are here on the website!
REMINDER! If you have a personal website and we don't have it listed here, let us know! We'll add it. And if you have a plaque, certificate or station photo you'd like to share, send that along too. It's been a while since we received updated ones so please do share!
Do you have something For Sale or Wanted? We have a page for that too!
AND (!), we are always looking for articles, contest writeups, antenna raising/modification articles, new radio or accessory reviews, photos, et al. Send them along so that we can publish them in SCCCORE and all can enjoy and benefit. Interested in doing a monthly, quarterly, semi-annual or even annual article on a specific subject? Let us know! Thanks!
Are you subscribed to the SCCC Reflector? You should be! Click here to join and start getting emails that are posted to our group!
Strange but true...
Our brain is our fattiest organ, being composed of nearly 60% fat.
73 for now,
--Dennis NE6I
less
As of this writing, we are a little over a month before the 2026 Santa Maria DX and Contesters Convention. Are you going? Have you registered? Contest Dinner? Reserved a hotel room? (There are two hotels with special rates--click on the Santa Maria Convention logo for more info). N6TJ and N6AA have worked hard to make this an enjoyable Convention. A long list of programs and events are regularly updated on the Events page. XYL or OM not a ham? There are plenty of things to do in the area and in nearby Solvang, not to mention the surrounding area. A couple of links to extra curricular activities are at the bottom of the Hotel page. Hope to see you there!
February 7, 2026. An Italian restaurant in Vista, California. Nine Southern California contesters and DXers met for lunch. It wasn't an official SCCC meeting but brought back some good memories. Thank you, Jim, N6TJ for getting us out with now 95-year-old Bob Roaney, K6RR who is still quite sharp! Yes, there was pizza on the menu just like in the old days of SCCC meetings (remember the post-TRW Swap Meet meetings?). But only one of us had pizza this time. The rest of us sampled the well stocked-lunch menu at Ciao Ristorante Italiano. Yours truly drove right by the place the first time arriving thanks to my usually but not always accurate in-vehicle navigation. And found it hard to turn around to go back but eventually succeeded and found the gang at the restaurant. At the get together, I asked Jim how he had found this place (he lives in Yorba Linda, a fair distance from Vista!). He used good old TripAdvisor and found it to be rated the number one Italian restaurant in Vista (which btw, is where K6RR lives these days. Vista, not the restaurant). Food? Very good. Service? Very good. Prices? Very good. Portions? OMG, many of us took home boxes to eat for dinner that night! Social and reminiscing plus catching up? Excellent! Many of the group had each other much more often than I had. Some were new introductons to me. The majority I knew but had not seen personally since the 1980s! I think some did not even recognize me after all these years, but fortunately, I had on a shirt with my callsign. Hi. Present were N6TJ, W6YA, NE6I, N6CW, K6AR, K6RR, W6YI, W6MKB and N0RR. A good time was had by all. (Two others who had planned to attend could not make it last minute, N6AA and N6MJ--missed you guys!>. We SCCCers perhaps need to do quarterly luncheons going forward. What say? Oh P.S. Smack me on the wrist! I failed to get even ONE picture of our gathering! Next time!
The CQWW DX SSB results are out. A record number of logs were received, 10,576! The write up can be found here. Scores and other details can be found here.
The September, 2025 NA Sprint CW contest results have also been published. Congrats to Marko, N5ZO for turning in one of only three Golden Logs (100% error free)! He placed 7th overall in the final standings. Ron, WQ6X was running some great antennas and placed third in the QRP category. Our SCCC #1 team (N5ZO, K6ZH, N6MJ, VY2TT, and AC6T) placed fourth in the team competition. According to the article, activity was about the same as the previous September but down 25% from February, 2025. Apparently several folks have questioned: "Should we think about making the Spring a 3-hour event?" That would be a radical change. Article and full results can be found here.
And the August, 2025 NAQP CW results are out. Dan, N6MJ finished sixth in the Single Op Unassisted category while MarkO, N5ZO finished seventh in the Assisted group. Ron, WQ6X took second in the Single Op Assisted QRP category. The SCCC #1 team finished ninth in this one. The article and line scores have not yet been published on NCJWeb but are available in the February/March issue of NCJ.
Also, the 2026 CQ WPX RTTY Contest raw results have been published. These are before log checking. Check them out here.
The World Wide Radio Operators Foundation (WWROF) has assumed stewardship for WRTC.info, the website of the World Radio Team Championship, the event that many of us think of as the Olympics of amateur radio contesting. From the WWROF website, "WWROF will provide continuity for the long-running, community-built website that preserves information and archives from WRTC events across more than three decades of radiosport history." WWROF is headed by a who's who in contesting.
A couple of items from the February 18 edition of the ARRL Contest Update... For the new contesters among us,
"New Contesters: Signal Reports
For major contests that require a signal report to be sent as part of an exchange, just send 59 or 599. You might think “huh, that’s not really a signal report!” and you’d be mostly right — it’s probably not an accurate signal report. You still have to send it. Contest sponsors, in general, do not check sent signal reports vs. received signal reports."
And this:
"Rubber-Clocking — Changing the logged time of contacts to conform with contest rules. Do not do this, it’s against the rules. Log the contact when you make it. With modern logging software it should never be necessary to change the time for any contacts in a contest log."
As mentioned above, the ARRL DX CW contest took place last month. Friday evening and Saturday conditions were pretty decent according to most. Sunday went into the tank pretty much with an SFI of only 110 and K index at 4 or 5. Here are some comments from 3830. Bill, N6RV called Sunday conditions a "wet blanket" with no Europeans and no real opening until noon. Dana, K6NR called it a great contest and he worked it longer than usual. He thought conditions were pretty good except on 10 meters on Sunday. He had very strong signals from JA on all bands. Dave, K6FA did a single band 10 meter operation and said conditions weren't good enough to get into Europe. Ken, K6LA operated VY2TT remotely from L.A. The good news was that Murphy didn't visit PEI but the bad news was that he did visit L.A. For the first time, there was a power outage in the shack. He thinks he caused it when he brought in the toaster oven to the shack, said Ken. That aside, he said that when 20 and 15 meters opened to Europe on Saturday morning, the pileups were so thick that it killed his rate. On Sunday, he couldn't buy a pileup.
Jim, W6YA went single band 10 meters and expects the band won't be much fun next year. Like others noted, Sunday was very poor on the band with signals weak and the over the pole opening never happening. And then it got worse. Two power poles started emitting S-7 noise, covering up all but the Caribbean and Central and South America. He spent most of the rest of the day chasing the poles down to report to San Diego Gas and Electric. Dennis, N6KI played around S&P and recorded just over 900 Q's doing so. Like others, he reported poor conditions on Sunday. Bill, W8QZA (W6QU) reported the same. He was again QRP and said his best contact was finding TT1GD calling CQ way up on 15m. Noise levels were low on 40 and 80, and he managed eight Q's with Japan on the band. No EU on 40 but he did log CR3DX and ED8X. Bruce, WA7BNM was single band 15 and experienced great conditions into Europe on Saturday morning. However, conditions were virtually non-existent on Sunday.
Bill, N7VM almost threw in the towel Friday night due to power line noise but that improved greatly by Saturday. He said conditions were better than expected that day but Sunday was a slog. He tried a different strategy this year of taking several short two hour breaks instead of longer ones. This allowed him to catch the Saturday opening on 20 meters to Europe. Mike, W4EF did the contest remote. He focused on BIC and when things got uncomfortable, he imagined the mindset of a marathon runner to push through. Mike logged 1,386 contacts for a score of just over 1.2 million points. Sounds like the BIC worked out! Kurt, W6PH was handicapped for this contest. Wet snow earlier in the week froze everything and his antennas were no higher than 15 feet (he usually raises them on Tuesday or Wednesday prior but was unable to so so this time). He was going to skip the contest but decided to give it a go. He was pleasantly surprised at how well the lowered antennas played! ...to the tune of 1,400+ contacts and 1.25 million points! He mostly did S&P and avoided the big pileups. Like others have said above, conditions were in the toilet on Sunday. No EU on 10 save for a couple of weak EAs. 15 was also weak with only a few EUs logged. He had a nice JA run during the last two hours of the contest on the three high bands. Despite the conditions and low antennas, he had a lot of fun and is glad he jumped in.
Jim, K6ZH was limited time-wise but figured he better take advantage of good conditions to Europe on 10 and 15 meters while we on the west coast still can. It kind of worked except that Sunday was no bueno. His best EU run was actually on 40 meters Friday evening! "20m was still open at 06Z on Sunday- *very* fluttery, but loud, EU; and a ton of JAs. I also had a big JA run on 15m toward the end of the contest on Sunday afternoon." Warren, KN6ZZI made his first CW QSOs since becoming a ham, other than a few practice Q's. He says he learned a lot! Tim, N6GP did a personal best in this contest, logging 907 QSOs to beat his previous best (2014) of 710. He had good runs into Europe on 15 meters Saturday morning but 40 was rough that night. Sunday morning was terrible.
I hope it goes without saying, please DO submit your scores toward the SCCC to the contest committees! We appreciate all scores big and small! And please do join us on an SCCC team when we call out for volunteers. Again, scores big and small are all good. Thanks...
ATTN: SCCC members! Have you registered for the 2026 Santa Maria DX and Contesters Convention? Do you have your SCCC member badge to wear to the event? Links to both are here on the website!
REMINDER! If you have a personal website and we don't have it listed here, let us know! We'll add it. And if you have a plaque, certificate or station photo you'd like to share, send that along too. It's been a while since we received updated ones so please do share!
Do you have something For Sale or Wanted? We have a page for that too!
AND (!), we are always looking for articles, contest writeups, antenna raising/modification articles, new radio or accessory reviews, photos, et al. Send them along so that we can publish them in SCCCORE and all can enjoy and benefit. Interested in doing a monthly, quarterly, semi-annual or even annual article on a specific subject? Let us know! Thanks!
Are you subscribed to the SCCC Reflector? You should be! Click here to join and start getting emails that are posted to our group!
Strange but true...
Our brain is our fattiest organ, being composed of nearly 60% fat.
73 for now,
--Dennis NE6I
less
Monthly News (SCCCORE - SoCal Contest Club Operations, Results and Enlightenments)
February 2026
And I have a request. We all have smart phones these days, right? Take a picture or two of you, your station, your antenna, or whatever you like during the upcoming ARRL DX contest. Or before, after or during a break. Send it to me for publication. Let's see those pictures! Thanks!
more
From the ARRL Contest Update for December 17, 2025:
Contest University 2026 is now open for registration. CTU will be held on Thursday, May 14, 2026 at the Hope Hotel in Dayton, Ohio. “This is the day before Hamvention opens in Xenia, Ohio. CTU 2025 Dayton was amazing, and we expect 2026 CTU to be even better!” says Tim Duffy, K3LR, Contest University Chairman. Presentations from past CTU events are available at the Contest University website. Scholarships are available to cover the CTU registration fees for students 25 years old and younger through a generous grant from the Northern California DX Club (NCDXF). See the CTU website for all of the details.
John Dorr, K1AR reminds us that nominations for the 2026 Contest Hall of Fame are due by March 1. Have someone deserving in mind? Learn about the process on the Contest Hall of Fame website. The Contest HOF was established by CQ Magazine in 1986 and is now managed by the World Wide Radio Operators Foundation (WWROF).
Tim Duffy, K3LR announced the 32nd Annual Contest Dinner during Hamvention 2026.
Get tickets now at https://www.contestdinner.com/get-tickets/
Tables for 10 and single seats are available now.
When & Where:
The Dayton Contest Dinner will be held on Saturday night, May 16, 2026 at 6:30pm.
Cash bar opens at 5:30pm.
Located at the Hope Hotel, Wright Patterson AFB (Official Contester Hotel).
Contest Dinner Highlights:
Master of Ceremonies: WWROF Contest Director, John, K1AR
Contest Dinner Speakers: Mark, M0DXR and Robert, S53R
First Prize: Icom IC-7610 - thanks to Icom America
Lots of additional door prizes!
2026 Contest Hall of Fame Inductions: To Be Announced at the Dinner
Many contest operators from around the world attend this event.
If you enjoy radio contesting, you do not want to miss this Contest Dinner!
https://www.contestdinner.com
I hope it goes without saying, please DO submit your scores toward the SCCC to the contest committees! We appreciate all scores big and small! And please do join us on an SCCC team when we call out for volunteers. Again, scores big and small are all good. Thanks...
ATTN: SCCC members! Have you registered for the 2026 Santa Maria DX and Contesters Convention? Do you have your SCCC member badge to wear to the event? Links to both are here on the website!
REMINDER! If you have a personal website and we don't have it listed here, let us know! We'll add it. And if you have a plaque, certificate or station photo you'd like to share, send that along too. It's been a while since we received updated ones so please do share!
Do you have something For Sale or Wanted? We have a page for that too!
AND (!), we are always looking for articles, contest writeups, antenna raising/modification articles, new radio or accessory reviews, photos, et al. Send them along so that we can publish them in SCCCORE and all can enjoy and benefit. Interested in doing a monthly, quarterly, semi-annual or even annual article on a specific subject? Let us know! Thanks!
Are you subscribed to the SCCC Reflector? You should be! Click here to join and start getting emails that are posted to our group!
Strange but true...
Coca-cola was invented in 1886 as a medicinal tonic in Atlanta, Georgia. Pepsi was originally called Brad's Drink before being renamed in 1898. Dr. Pepper was created in 1885 and is the oldest major soft drink brand. Mountain Dew was created in 1940 as a whiskey mixer in Tennessee. 7 UP originally contained lithium citrate, a mood stablizing drug, until 1950. Canada Dry Ginger Ale was developed in 1904 and marketed as medicinal.
73 for now,
--Dennis NE6I
less
Monthly News (SCCCORE - SoCal Contest Club Operations, Results and Enlightenments)
January 2026
Welcome to 2026! The Southern California Contest Club turns 50 years old this year! Our club was formed on July 17, 1976. The first meeting that day took place at the Arcadia home of Pete Grillo, then W6RTT. There were were 60-70 contesters present. Leigh, KR6X sent out the invites, bought and cooked the burgers, and bought the keg of beer. Since then, the club has put together many competitive efforts, setting many records along the way and won the club category in many contests. Club members continue to set records and put in tremendous scores to this day. Read more about our history here https://socalcontestclub.org/historical.php. Perhaps we should put together a one day or part day sprint of some sort. If nothing else, perhaps we all get on the air on 40 meter SSB in July and shoot the breeze. Thoughts? Email me or better yet, chat us up on the Club Reflector!
more
On a separate note, some of us were active hams back then. If you are one of us old timers, do you have pictures of you at your station, or maybe just your station or antenna from back then? Limiting it to just 1976 is a bit restrictive, so let's open it up to anytime in the 1970s or earlier! We'll post your pictures here in a future issue.
Welcome aboard to new SCCC member KC, N6EK. He lives in Diamond Bar. He has joined the club to sharpen his skills and explore the capabilities of his station. Welcome KC!
Also, welcome to Matthew, KA6JAR from Orange. First licensed in late 2023, he got his feet wet in contesting for the first time in the 2024 CQWW DX SSB contest, and the bug bit. He has mostly enjoyed DX contests thus far. He's enjoyed building most of his antennas and is looking forward to getting a tower up. His dad's late uncle was a ham and Matthew was able to obtain his uncle's call sign via the vanity program. Very cool! His QRZ page shows his many antenna projects and some fantastic catches while fishing! Welcome Matthew!
The CQWW DX CW contest took place the last weekend of November. It was one of those unusual times where it did not fall on Thanksgiving weekend. Conditions weren't quite as good as the October SSB contest, probably due to some solar disturbances that took place the week before the CW event. How popular is CQWW DX? I'm sure you already know this but these two contests are pretty much the MOST popular contests of the year! CQWW Contest Director John Dorr, K1AR reported that just 12 hours after the CW contest, 4,000 logs had already been submitted! That's crazy, and a testament to the popularity of these contests. He also noted that four SOAB stations had already submitted with over 10,000 QSOs each! That is mind boggling! That is an average of 208+ QSOs per hour over 48 hours! Most of us would like to experience an hour or two of 208 QSOs. Now, multiply that by 48 hours! Are you dizzy yet?!
Fritz, W6KK did single band 80 meters hoping to work Zone 40 for his 5BWAZ award. According to spots, there were two stations active but neither showed up on 80 meters when there was prop to California. Maybe next time. Ryan, AI6DO spent most of his short time in the contest working 10 meters to fill some DXCC slots. Bill, N6RV said that 10 wasn't as hot as during the SSB contest but the other bands made up for it. 40 was very good in fact and 80 was a lot of fun. He normally operates relatively slower speed CW. He increased it to 23 wpm during the last 20 minutes of the contest and noticed that the stations calling him were more attentive. He will operate at a higher speed going forward. Dennis, N6KI had a stuck rotator (NE at 45 degrees). Since he has a SteppIR, he could do a 180 reverse azimuth and work into the Pacific and Japan. Dennis, NE6I said that conditions weren't as good as for SSB but it was still a lot of fun. 40 though was horrible both evenings. He didn't work a single station in the evening but managed to work a few Sunday morning. He lost most of Saturday and quite a bit of Sunday while working on his home remodel project. Timing required his attention there unfortunately.
Steve, W6QX could only operate Saturday and Sunday mornings but had fun anyway. No new DXCC counters this time. John, N6MU was 100% S&P and was happy with his score considering he was low power to his backyard vertical. He said, it's "Frustrating when the loud ones can't hear you but brings a smile when the weak ones get you on the first call." Ken, K6LA was again operating VY2TT, this time on site. Murphy had hit and taken down his computer there so he had to put in a new one. Also, his antenna switches were down but since he was there, he was able to turn the antennas with the local controllers. When the dust settled, he had 6,533 QSOs in the log for 9.8 million points! Clayton, NF1R ran the club call (N6RA) at UCSB station W6RFU. He broke the previous LP Classic record for W6 by 190K points! His writeup can be found here. Jim, K6ZH didn't have much time to devote to the contest but wanted to get on and enjoy 10 meters. He said he also had a decent EU run on 40 Saturday evening. Jim, W6YA said this contest is the highlight of the year for him. However the solar disturbances put a damper on Saturday. Dana, K6NR said that conditions were pretty good, although not as good as the SSB contest. Europeans on 10 were fewer and weaker, especially on Saturday.
Terry, N6CW called propagation "interesting." He rated conditions a "C." 40 meters was noisy both nights. Sunday started slowly but picked up as 10 meters quieted down and opened to western Europe. The last hours of the contest were pretty good he said. He put up a low 80 meter dipole so that he could work KH6J on five bands, and it worked much better than expected. Bill, W8QZA (running W6QU QRP) said that conditions weren't as good as they have been. He only logged 33 Q's into Europe and there was no overnight activity on 20. John, W6JBR had trouble getting through to some stations on 10 meters on Saturday but had better luck on Sunday. His best hour in fact was the last hour of the contest. Kurt, W6PH said that he felt conditions were not that great. 10 meters didn't open to all of Europe, rather only to Spain and southern Europe. On the other hand, 80 was very quiet and OG5B answered his CQ at sunrise via long path. Bruce, WA7BNM agreed with most others that conditions were significantly worse than for the SSB contest in late October. He worked only one station in Zone 20 whereas he worked 11 in October. He had a nice run of JA's early Saturday evening on 15 (he did a single band effort) to make up for the lack of multipliers.
WOW! Dan, N6MJ was at EF8R and posted the highest score in the SOABHP category on the Contest Scoreboard Online, likely obliterating the all-time record in the category! Will it hold up against CQ9A's score (Chris, KL9A op)? It should. You can read Dan's wonderful writeup about the experience here. Tim, N6GP experienced very good conditions on 10 and 15 meters, and he had good runs to Japan and Asia both days. Not so much for Europe so he had to do S&P for those contacts. 40 meters was just so-so he said. Jim, N6TJ put together a team for the KH6J multi-multi that consisted of himself, Dick, N6AA, David, N6AN and former SCCC member and President N5OT along with five KH6 gentlemen and K1ZM. They racked up over 9,500 Q's and almost 20 million points! Read the write up here. Glenn, K6NA did about 90% S&P and racked up 869 Q's for 900K+ points. The Wednesday before, he reinstalled his 200 foot BOG for 80 and 160 meters to enhance RX capability on those bands. That and his full size TX vertical resulted in 110 Q's on the two bands.
The raw scores from the contest are posted here.
From The ARRL Contest Update for December 17, 2025, the "Word to the Wise" section...
UOS or USOS
UnShift on Space. RTTY uses the 5-bit Baudot code, which relies on toggling between Letters (LTRS) and Figures (FIGS) to expand its limited character set. For instance, "N9ADG" requires shifting modes: "N FIGS 9 LTRS A D G". If a shift command is lost to interference, text can become garbled (e.g., "599" appearing as "TOO"). The "Unshift on Space" (USOS) feature reduces errors by resetting to LTRS at every space. RTTY software often compensates for this by auto-inserting FIGS symbols before numbers and offering a "hover" feature to decode garbled words using the alternate character set.
The invisible yet needed shifting and unshifting symbols sent between letters and figures is why it’s NOT good practice to use “5NN” in your exchange for RTTY. It can cost you time since you’re sending “FIGS 5 LTRS N N” while “599” is “FIGS 5 9 9” and time is contacts!
----------
Tim Duffy, K3LR, Contest University Chairman released the following statement.
"I am proud to announce that registration is now open for the 2026 Dayton ConTest University ("CTU") to be held all day on Thursday, May 14, 2026 at the Hope Hotel. http://contestuniversity.com
The 2026 CTU Dayton course outline will be posted once all professors have confirmed for 2026. Check the CTU website frequently for updates. We have several NEW (first time at CTU - experienced) professors for 2026! Each presentation is carefully prepared with up to date information - the CTU professors are experienced contesters and will share their knowledge. You can ask questions and find out new ways to enjoy radio sport contesting!
There are scholarships (student registration fee paid) available for CTU through a generous grant from the Northern California DX Foundation (NCDXF) for those students 25 years old and younger. Please use the "contact us" button on the CTU website to get more information. 2026 Student registration information is on the CTU web site now http://contestuniversity.com"
----------
ATTN: SCCC members! Have you registered for the 2026 Santa Maria DX and Contesters Convention? Do you have your SCCC member badge to wear to the event? Links to both are here on the website!
REMINDER! If you have a personal website and we don't have it listed here, let us know! We'll add it. And if you have a plaque, certificate or station photo you'd like to share, send that along too. It's been a while since we received updated ones so please do share!
Do you have something For Sale or Wanted? We have a page for that too!
AND (!), we are always looking for articles, contest writeups, antenna raising/modification articles, new radio or accessory reviews, photos, et al. Send them along so that we can publish them in SCCCORE and all can enjoy and benefit. Interested in doing a monthly, quarterly, semi-annual or even annual article on a specific subject? Let us know! Thanks!
Are you subscribed to the SCCC Reflector? You should be! Click here to join and start getting emails that are posted to our group!
Strange but true...
Clinophobia is the fear of beds!
73 for now,
--Dennis NE6I
less
Welcome aboard to new SCCC member KC, N6EK. He lives in Diamond Bar. He has joined the club to sharpen his skills and explore the capabilities of his station. Welcome KC!
Also, welcome to Matthew, KA6JAR from Orange. First licensed in late 2023, he got his feet wet in contesting for the first time in the 2024 CQWW DX SSB contest, and the bug bit. He has mostly enjoyed DX contests thus far. He's enjoyed building most of his antennas and is looking forward to getting a tower up. His dad's late uncle was a ham and Matthew was able to obtain his uncle's call sign via the vanity program. Very cool! His QRZ page shows his many antenna projects and some fantastic catches while fishing! Welcome Matthew!
The CQWW DX CW contest took place the last weekend of November. It was one of those unusual times where it did not fall on Thanksgiving weekend. Conditions weren't quite as good as the October SSB contest, probably due to some solar disturbances that took place the week before the CW event. How popular is CQWW DX? I'm sure you already know this but these two contests are pretty much the MOST popular contests of the year! CQWW Contest Director John Dorr, K1AR reported that just 12 hours after the CW contest, 4,000 logs had already been submitted! That's crazy, and a testament to the popularity of these contests. He also noted that four SOAB stations had already submitted with over 10,000 QSOs each! That is mind boggling! That is an average of 208+ QSOs per hour over 48 hours! Most of us would like to experience an hour or two of 208 QSOs. Now, multiply that by 48 hours! Are you dizzy yet?!
Fritz, W6KK did single band 80 meters hoping to work Zone 40 for his 5BWAZ award. According to spots, there were two stations active but neither showed up on 80 meters when there was prop to California. Maybe next time. Ryan, AI6DO spent most of his short time in the contest working 10 meters to fill some DXCC slots. Bill, N6RV said that 10 wasn't as hot as during the SSB contest but the other bands made up for it. 40 was very good in fact and 80 was a lot of fun. He normally operates relatively slower speed CW. He increased it to 23 wpm during the last 20 minutes of the contest and noticed that the stations calling him were more attentive. He will operate at a higher speed going forward. Dennis, N6KI had a stuck rotator (NE at 45 degrees). Since he has a SteppIR, he could do a 180 reverse azimuth and work into the Pacific and Japan. Dennis, NE6I said that conditions weren't as good as for SSB but it was still a lot of fun. 40 though was horrible both evenings. He didn't work a single station in the evening but managed to work a few Sunday morning. He lost most of Saturday and quite a bit of Sunday while working on his home remodel project. Timing required his attention there unfortunately.
Steve, W6QX could only operate Saturday and Sunday mornings but had fun anyway. No new DXCC counters this time. John, N6MU was 100% S&P and was happy with his score considering he was low power to his backyard vertical. He said, it's "Frustrating when the loud ones can't hear you but brings a smile when the weak ones get you on the first call." Ken, K6LA was again operating VY2TT, this time on site. Murphy had hit and taken down his computer there so he had to put in a new one. Also, his antenna switches were down but since he was there, he was able to turn the antennas with the local controllers. When the dust settled, he had 6,533 QSOs in the log for 9.8 million points! Clayton, NF1R ran the club call (N6RA) at UCSB station W6RFU. He broke the previous LP Classic record for W6 by 190K points! His writeup can be found here. Jim, K6ZH didn't have much time to devote to the contest but wanted to get on and enjoy 10 meters. He said he also had a decent EU run on 40 Saturday evening. Jim, W6YA said this contest is the highlight of the year for him. However the solar disturbances put a damper on Saturday. Dana, K6NR said that conditions were pretty good, although not as good as the SSB contest. Europeans on 10 were fewer and weaker, especially on Saturday.
Terry, N6CW called propagation "interesting." He rated conditions a "C." 40 meters was noisy both nights. Sunday started slowly but picked up as 10 meters quieted down and opened to western Europe. The last hours of the contest were pretty good he said. He put up a low 80 meter dipole so that he could work KH6J on five bands, and it worked much better than expected. Bill, W8QZA (running W6QU QRP) said that conditions weren't as good as they have been. He only logged 33 Q's into Europe and there was no overnight activity on 20. John, W6JBR had trouble getting through to some stations on 10 meters on Saturday but had better luck on Sunday. His best hour in fact was the last hour of the contest. Kurt, W6PH said that he felt conditions were not that great. 10 meters didn't open to all of Europe, rather only to Spain and southern Europe. On the other hand, 80 was very quiet and OG5B answered his CQ at sunrise via long path. Bruce, WA7BNM agreed with most others that conditions were significantly worse than for the SSB contest in late October. He worked only one station in Zone 20 whereas he worked 11 in October. He had a nice run of JA's early Saturday evening on 15 (he did a single band effort) to make up for the lack of multipliers.
WOW! Dan, N6MJ was at EF8R and posted the highest score in the SOABHP category on the Contest Scoreboard Online, likely obliterating the all-time record in the category! Will it hold up against CQ9A's score (Chris, KL9A op)? It should. You can read Dan's wonderful writeup about the experience here. Tim, N6GP experienced very good conditions on 10 and 15 meters, and he had good runs to Japan and Asia both days. Not so much for Europe so he had to do S&P for those contacts. 40 meters was just so-so he said. Jim, N6TJ put together a team for the KH6J multi-multi that consisted of himself, Dick, N6AA, David, N6AN and former SCCC member and President N5OT along with five KH6 gentlemen and K1ZM. They racked up over 9,500 Q's and almost 20 million points! Read the write up here. Glenn, K6NA did about 90% S&P and racked up 869 Q's for 900K+ points. The Wednesday before, he reinstalled his 200 foot BOG for 80 and 160 meters to enhance RX capability on those bands. That and his full size TX vertical resulted in 110 Q's on the two bands.
The raw scores from the contest are posted here.
From The ARRL Contest Update for December 17, 2025, the "Word to the Wise" section...
UOS or USOS
UnShift on Space. RTTY uses the 5-bit Baudot code, which relies on toggling between Letters (LTRS) and Figures (FIGS) to expand its limited character set. For instance, "N9ADG" requires shifting modes: "N FIGS 9 LTRS A D G". If a shift command is lost to interference, text can become garbled (e.g., "599" appearing as "TOO"). The "Unshift on Space" (USOS) feature reduces errors by resetting to LTRS at every space. RTTY software often compensates for this by auto-inserting FIGS symbols before numbers and offering a "hover" feature to decode garbled words using the alternate character set.
The invisible yet needed shifting and unshifting symbols sent between letters and figures is why it’s NOT good practice to use “5NN” in your exchange for RTTY. It can cost you time since you’re sending “FIGS 5 LTRS N N” while “599” is “FIGS 5 9 9” and time is contacts!
Tim Duffy, K3LR, Contest University Chairman released the following statement.
"I am proud to announce that registration is now open for the 2026 Dayton ConTest University ("CTU") to be held all day on Thursday, May 14, 2026 at the Hope Hotel. http://contestuniversity.com
The 2026 CTU Dayton course outline will be posted once all professors have confirmed for 2026. Check the CTU website frequently for updates. We have several NEW (first time at CTU - experienced) professors for 2026! Each presentation is carefully prepared with up to date information - the CTU professors are experienced contesters and will share their knowledge. You can ask questions and find out new ways to enjoy radio sport contesting!
There are scholarships (student registration fee paid) available for CTU through a generous grant from the Northern California DX Foundation (NCDXF) for those students 25 years old and younger. Please use the "contact us" button on the CTU website to get more information. 2026 Student registration information is on the CTU web site now http://contestuniversity.com"
ATTN: SCCC members! Have you registered for the 2026 Santa Maria DX and Contesters Convention? Do you have your SCCC member badge to wear to the event? Links to both are here on the website!
REMINDER! If you have a personal website and we don't have it listed here, let us know! We'll add it. And if you have a plaque, certificate or station photo you'd like to share, send that along too. It's been a while since we received updated ones so please do share!
Do you have something For Sale or Wanted? We have a page for that too!
AND (!), we are always looking for articles, contest writeups, antenna raising/modification articles, new radio or accessory reviews, photos, et al. Send them along so that we can publish them in SCCCORE and all can enjoy and benefit. Interested in doing a monthly, quarterly, semi-annual or even annual article on a specific subject? Let us know! Thanks!
Are you subscribed to the SCCC Reflector? You should be! Click here to join and start getting emails that are posted to our group!
Strange but true...
Clinophobia is the fear of beds!
73 for now,
--Dennis NE6I
less
