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| Invisible 160m Beverage in snow. | 160m antenna (low wire dipole) in winter snow. |
OE5TXF operated CQWW-160-CW 2026 in "High-Power Assisted" from near Wels in Upper Austria.
Total operating time in the CQWW-160 Contest was just under sixteen hours.
We should have known that this wasn't going to be much fun with A=31 and K=4 right at the start. Although things did slightly improve as the contest went on, it was never much better than just plain awful.
Started at 22z S&Ping the multitude of CQers. Went off for a rest at 02z, coming back on at 05z on Saturday morning. The dawn peak was almost non-existent. You know things are bad when you can only just hear K1LZ at sunrise. Worked the EU locals on through to 07z.
Further operating was then in three separate sessions : Saturday evening from 1830z to 2100z, Sunday morning from 0200z to 0730z and then finally from 2000z to the end.
Just scraped QSO nr 800 as the clock struck 2200z on Sunday evening.
The 2026 QSO total (800) was less than in four previous CQWW-160m operations from OE5TXF :
2021 : 964 QSOs
2022 : 1,158 QSOs (the best year so far)
2023 : 862 QSOs
2024 : 830 QSOs
2026 : 800 QSOs
The 160m antenna is a low dipole, with one end at about 18m up in a tree and the other end down virtually at ground level. Not ideal for DXing. A temporary beverage antenna was run out especially for the contest.
This year's best QSO rate was during the second one-hour period from 23z to 24z on Friday evening, peaking at 126 QSOs/hr in 2400z. After the first three hours, it was rapidly downhill on the QSO rate.
Much of the operating throughout the contest was in Search & Pounce with only relatively few sessions CQing.
Conditions were poor throughout the contest. OE5TXF never heard a JA (not even JA3YBK or JH4UYB both of whom were frequently spotted). The only Caribbean DX worked was ZF5T.
Only 7 S/P Multipliers were among the 6 W stations and 1 VE station worked:
W1: ME, W2: NY, W3: DE, PA, W4: FL, NC.
VE: QC.
The OE5TXF Continental break-down (yes, with 97.5% EU!):
| EUROPE | 794 | 97.5% |
| NORTH AMERICA | 8 | 1.0% |
| ASIA | 8 | 1.0% |
| AFRICA | 4 | 0.5% |
| OCEANIA | - | 0.0% |
| SOUTH AMERICA | - | 0.0% |
For comparison the Continental Breakdowns for MW5B and OE5TXF are shown below:
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| MW5B : 85.2% EU and 12.8% NA. | OE5TXF : 97.5% EU and 1.0% NA. |
For working DX (rather than loads of EU stations) MW5B benefitted both from a vertical antenna and an elaborate Beverage receiving system.
MW5B was operated by Ian G3WVG from Jack GW8DX's QTH.
Ian G3WVG operated MW5B for over 28 hours in CQWW-160m - no hour of darkness was wasted!
Meanwhile OE5TXF was able to work countless DL, SP, OK, S5 and HA stations, but virtually no DX!
The Top 40 Countries break-down at OE5TXF
| DX |
Top 40
|
-
|
DX |
Top 40
|
| DL |
176
|
F |
11
|
|
| OK |
67
|
YL |
10
|
|
| RA |
55
|
LZ |
10
|
|
| SP |
52
|
EA |
9
|
|
| S5 |
42
|
OE |
9
|
|
| HA |
38
|
OH |
9
|
|
| I |
33
|
LA |
8
|
|
| G |
24
|
OZ |
7
|
|
| UR |
24
|
W |
6
|
|
| LY |
22
|
SV |
6
|
|
| OM |
20
|
IT9 |
4
|
|
| 9A |
20
|
GM |
3
|
|
| PA |
17
|
UA9 |
3
|
|
| HB |
16
|
LX |
3
|
|
| YU |
15
|
EI |
2
|
|
| SM |
15
|
CT3 |
2
|
|
| EW |
13
|
ES |
2
|
|
| YO |
12
|
ER |
2
|
|
| ON |
12
|
GW |
2
|
|
| E7 |
11
|
Z3 |
2
|
DX (Non-EU) Countries are shown with PINK BACKGROUND