Thought I’d put up a note that ALL this weekend is the CQ World-Wide WPX SSB contest. This is one of the very busiest weekends on HF for the entire year, and is a great opportunity to get some contacts on HF, even if you’re not a contester. Large contest stations with very capable receive antennas, which would not normally be on the air, will be operating worldwide – so you will be heard by more stations and further away than normal. People will want to work you.

Don’t be daunted by the fact it’s a contest – there’s no requirement to enter formally (though it’s encouraged) and all you have to do to complete a contact in this contest is give the report (always 5/9) and a number which you increment by 1 each time. For example, “you are 5/9 001”, “you are 5/9 002” etc. If you did want to enter, a contest logger is recommended (I like N1MM+) but not required – look on cqwpx.com for setup instructions for N1MM+.

Many large stations will be sitting there calling CQ continuously on one frequency for literally hours at a time. There will be busy times with huge pile-ups and quieter times where you’ll easily make the QSO. Rich pickings to be had for these on Sunday afternoon – work your way up a whole band and make easy QSO after QSO.

The permitted bands are: 160m, 80m, 40m, 20m, 15m and 10m.
Times are 0000 UTC tonight to 2359 UTC Sunday, i.e. 48 hours.
The full set of rules is here: https://www.cqwpx.com/rules.htm

Good luck, have fun!