WQ6X.Info - Operating the 2010 JIDX - Japanese International DX C.W. Contest

The JIDX - Japanese International DX Contest

The JIDX International DX Contest is a world-wide amateur radio competition held twice a year:

The CW (code) event is on the 3rd weekend in April - in 2010 NX6T took 1st-PLACE for North America!!
The SSB (voice) event is the 2nd weekend in November (between the November Sweepstakes weeknds).

Click Here to view the rules for the Japanese International DX Contest.

In this competition amateurs from around the world endeavor to contact Japanese amaturs on the standard radio bands from 160-meters (1.8 mhz) to 10-meters (28 mhz). 160-meter contacts are worth 4 points, 10-meter contacts are worth 2 points and contacts on the other bands are worth 1 point; although as you can see below we made no contacts on 10 meters, thanks to sunspot cycle #24 just just getting started (coming out of a protracted sunspot minimum).

For the 2010 CW event, Ron WQ6X teamed up with N6KI to operate contest station NX6T in Fallbrook Ca. (N. San Diego County). Here are two OP pictures along with the Score/Prefecture Totals from the April 2010 event (made possible by WQ6X Software). Our QSO points are multiplied by the number of unique prefectures contacted on each radio band, giving us a total score of 81,498 points for the event. Despite a visit from Murphy, we took 1st-Place for North America in the C.W. Event. (Click here to see a picture of the plaque.)

Dennis - N6KI
Dennis is not only a cracker-jack operator but a great technician.
He fixed the amplifier (at right) proving that he really is a genius.
(It turned out to be a defective bleeder resistor that "munged" an insulator.)

Ron - WQ6X
This picture was taken around 1am - 2.5 hours before the
1300w amplifier (grey unit left-side) died.
Aside from that, the Elecraft K3 did a superb job.

Unfortunately, 3.5 hours into the contest, while scouring 160-meters for illusive Qsos, suddenly an orange-yellow flash shot from the left-side of the Centurion amplifier thru the grill openings and the amplifier shut down. The amazing thing is that it shutdown after 5 mins. of no transmitting. (A $1 bleeder resistor failed.)

We had taken the 220-cord off of the 800w Ameritron amplifier to make the 1300w Ten-Tec amplifier work.
Now, at 3:30 a.m. I get to figure out how to swap a 220-cord back to the Ameritron unit.
800 watts is much less than 1300 but is way better than 100.

WQ6X is currently in Alameda California

For more information contact Ron Fitch.

Telephone Ron at: (818) 216-5376

E-mail Ron at: Ron@WQ6X.Info