After some up and down band conditions in the last few months, there is hope that the Sun has entered a new more active sunspot phase, which could well produce big scores and lots of action in this year's CQ WPX CW Contest.
Sunspot numbers have been back in triple digits in May, with multiple sunspots visible on the solar disk - and that means more action on 15 and 20 meters - whether that extends to 10 meters, a band that was a bit quieter earlier this year for the CQ WPX SSB test, it is still unclear.
Even with good sunspot numbers, 10 meters has not been blowing wide open over the last week - but this year's WPX SSB test showed that's not necessary to have a contest that breaks records and brings in lots of logs.
"It was a very successful year for the WPX Phone Contest," said WPX Contest Director Randy Thompson K5ZD on his WPX blog.
"Even though 10 meters didn’t open as much as everyone had hoped, we still had a number of record scores." Thompson added.
In fact, the over 5200 logs submitted by mid-April were a new record for WPX SSB, another example of how contesting keeps growing even when conditions are not the greatest.
Unlike WPX SSB, which has seen an almost wholesale re-write of the record book in 2010 and 2011, many WPX CW records are still standing as the 2012 CW test arrives.
* The Multi-Multi mark of Team HC8N of 54.6 million points has stood since 1999
* The Single Op QRP record by John Crovelli W2GD at P40W has been in place since 1997
* The Multi-Two record by Team EF8M is now almost five years old, set in 2007
* The USA Single Op Low Power mark of Paul Newberry N4PN (using NF4A) has stood since 2002
* The USA Single Op QRP record by Chas Fulp K3WW hasn't been topped since he set it in 2001
* The Multi-Multi and Multi-Single marks for North American have been the same since 2002
* In South America, none of the Multi-Op marks have been broken since 2003
So will this be the year that a good chunk of the record book is re-written? Much of it will obviously depend on the band conditions.
Recent evidence from the DX cluster shows 10 meters definitely has been active, but not blowing open world wide by any means.
It's often not the easiest decision for top flight stations as to whether or not to head to 10 meters - as it must produce a better rate than 15 or 20 meters.
In recent years, there hasn't been any choice to make, as 10 meters hasn't shown much in WPX CW.
But if those sunspot numbers stay elevated - who knows what the last weekend in May might produce.
The CQ WPX CW Contest starts at 0000z May 26 and ends at 2400z May 27
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