Zone-Based Analyses from 2019 CQ WW SSB and CQ WW CW logs

A huge number of analyses can be performed with the various public CQ WW logs (cq-ww-2005--2019-augmented.xz; see here for details of the augmented format) for the period from 2005 to 2019.

As usual, there follow a few analyses that interest me. There is, of course, plenty of scope to use the files for further analyses.

Below are some simple zone-based analyses from the logs.

Zones and Distance

As in prior years, we can examine the distribution of distance for QSOs as a function of zone.

Below is a series of figures showing this distribution integrated over all bands and, separately, band by band for the CQ WW SSB and CQ WW CW contests for 2019.

Each plot shows a colour-coded distribution of the distance of QSOs for each zone, with the data for SSB appearing above the data for CW within each zone.

For every half-QSO in a given zone, the distance of the QSO is calculated; in ths way, the total  number of half-QSOs in bins of width 500 km is accumulated. Once all the QSOs for a particular contest have been binned in this manner, the distribution for each zone is normalised to total 100% and the result coded by colour and plotted. The mean distance for each zone and mode is denoted by a small white rectangle added to the underlying distance distribution.

Only QSOs for which logs have been provided by both parties, and which show no bust of either callsign or zone number are included. Bins coloured black are those for which no QSOs are present at the relevant distance.

The resulting plots are reproduced below. I find that they display in a compact format a wealth of data that is informative and often unexpected.

Zone Pairs

As in prior years, We can examine the number of QSOs for pairs of zones from the 2019 contests using the augmented file.

The procedure is simple. We consider only QSOs that meet the following criteria:

1. marked as "two-way" QSOs (i.e., both parties submitted a log containing the QSO);
2. no callsign or zone is bust by either party.

A counter is maintained for every pair of zones (i.e., 1-1, 1-2, 1-3 ... 40-39, 40-40) and the pertinent counter is incremented once for each distinct QSO between stations in those zones.

Separate figures are provided for each band, led by a figure integrating QSOs on all bands. The figures are constructed in such a way as to show the results for both the SSB and CW contests on a single figure. (Any zone pair with no QSOs that meet the above criteria appears in black on the figures.)

It is clear from these figures, as from those for earlier years, that CQ WW is principally a contest for intra-EU QSOs, and secondarily one for QSOs between EU and the East Coast of North America. This format is undoubtedly popular, as CQ WW, in both its SSB and CW incarnations, would seem by any measure to be the most popular contest of the year. But one does wonder whether there isn't some other format that would strongly encourage participation from other parts of the world, instead of concentrating on these limited areas.

Non-Zero Zone Pairs

The activity between pairs of zones in the CW and SSB CQ WW contests over the period from 2005 to 2019 may be usefully summarised in a single figure:

There are 820 possible zone pairs: (z1, z1), (z1, z2) ... (z1, z40), (z2, z2), (z2, z3) ... (z39, z39), (z39, z40), (z40, z40). The above figure shows the number of different zone pairs actually present in the public logs, for each mode and for each year for which data are available, separated on a band-by-band basis and presented in the form of percentages of the maximum possible count (i.e., 820).

The top two lines require some additional explication: the line marked "MEAN" is the arithmetic mean of the results for the six separate bands for the relevant year and mode. The line marked "ANY" is also constructed from the data for the individual bands, but such that any give zone pair need be present on any one (or more, of course) of the individual bands to be included on the "ANY" line.

Half-QSOs Per Zone for CQ WW CW and SSB, 2005 to 2019

A simple way to display the activity in the CQ WW contests is to count the number of half-QSOs in each zone. Each valid QSO requires the exchange of two zones, so we simply count the total number of times that each zone appears, making sure to include each valid QSO only once.

If we do this for the entire contest without taking the individual bands into account, we obtain this figure:

The plot shows data for both SSB and CW contests over the period from 2005 to 2019. As in earlier posts, I include only QSOs for which both parties submitted a log and neither party bust either the zone or the call of the other party. The black triangles represent contests in which no half-QSOs were made from (or to) a particular zone. By far the most striking feature of this plot is the way in which activity in EU overwhelms that in the rest of the world.

We can, of course, generate equivalent plots on a band-by-band basis:

The activity from zones 14, 15 and 16 so overwhelms these figures that in order to get a feel for the activity elsewhere, we need to move to a logarithmic scale:

The figures speak for themselves.

Statistics from 2019 CQ WW SSB and CQ WW CW logs

A huge number of analyses can be performed with the various public CQ WW logs (cq-ww-2005--2019-augmented.xz; see here for details of the augmented format) for the period from 2005 to 2019.

As usual, there follow a few analyses that interest me. There is, of course, plenty of scope to use the files for further analyses.

Below are some simple analyses of basic statistics from the logs.

 

Number of Logs

The raw number of submitted logs for SSB has been relatively flat for several years; the logs submitted for CW continues to show a fairly steady annual increase:

 
One not infrequently reads statements to the effect that the popularity of contests such as CQ WW has long been increasing. This plot suggests that this has not been true for a number of years (and even when it was true, there are alternative explanations for the year-on-year increase, such as increasing ease of electronic log submission).

 

Popularity

By definition, popularity requires some measure of people (or, in our case, the simple proxy of callsigns) -- there is no reason to believe, a priori, that the number of received logs as shown above is related in any particular way to the popularity of a contest.

So we look at the number of calls in the logs as a function of time, rather than positing any kind of well-defined positively correlated relationship between log submission and popularity (actually, the posts I have seen don't even bother to posit such a relationship: they are silent on the matter, thereby simply seeming to presume that the reader will assume one). 

However, the situation isn't as simple as it might be, because of the presence of busted calls in logs. If a call appears in the logs just once (or some small number of times), it is more likely to be a bust rather an actual participant. Where to set a cut-off a priori in order to discriminate between busts and actual calls is unclear; but we can plot the results of choosing several such values. 

First, for SSB:

Regardless of how many logs a call has to appear in before we regard it as a legitimate callsign, the popularity of CQ WW SSB in the past few years has fallen to a level rarely (if ever) seen in the public logs. It is certainly difficult to argue, on the basis of the above plot, that this contest is now more popular than it was at a similar point in the last solar cycle -- indeed, it appears, on its face, that the opposite is true.

[I note that a reasonable argument can be made that the number of uniques will be more or less proportional to the number of QSOs made (I have not tested that hypothesis; I leave it as an exercise for the interested reader to determine whether it is true), but there is no obvious reason why the same would be true for, for example, callsigns that appear in, say, ten or more logs.]

Moving to CW:

we see a similar story to SSB, except that any decrease in participation since the same point in the last cycle appears to be very small: participation in the CW event in the current inter-cycle doldrums seems to be more or less the same as at the corresponding point in the last cycle.

 

Geographical Participation

How has the geographical distribution of entries changed over time?

Again looking at SSB first: 

Zone 28 is no longer showing an annual increase in the number of logs submitted, although the number is considerably higher than it was five or more years ago. The number of logs from zones outside EU or the US (and, to a lesser extent, JA) is miniscule. This can be seen more clearly if we plot the percentage of logs received from each zone as a function of time:

On CW, most zones evidence a long-term increase:

But the relative increase seems to be spread more or less evenly across all zones, with the percentages of logs from each zone barely changing over the years 2005 to 2019:

Activity

Total activity in a contest depends both on the number of people who participate and on how many QSOs each of those people makes. We can use the public logs to count the total number of distinct QSOs in the logs (that is, each QSO is counted only once, even if both participants have submitted a log).

For SSB: 

The total number of distinct QSOs in the current inter-cycle doldrums is essentially the same as at the same point in the last solar cycle.

And for CW:

On this mode there appears to be a long-lived underlying upward trend (on which the effect of the solar cycle is superimposed). Despite the claims I see that CW is an obsolete technology in serious decline, the actual evidence, at least from this, the largest contest of the year, is quite the opposite. (This is a good reminder that when someone makes a claim whose truth is not self-evident, one should examine the underlying data for oneself. I have found that all too often it transpires that no defensible evidence has been put forward for the conclusion being drawn.) The evidence certainly seems to indicate that CW activity is faring better than activity on SSB, at least insofar as CQ WW is concerned.

 

Running and Calling

On SSB, the ongoing gradual shift towards stations strongly favouring either running or calling, rather than splitting their effort between the two types of operation, finally appears to have reached some kind of equilibrium, with essentially no change betweem 2018 and 2019:

I have not investigated the cause of the decrease in the percentage of stations strongly favouring running, although the public logs could readily be used to distinguish possibilities that spring to mind, such as more SO2R operation, more multi-operator stations, and/or a reluctance of stations to forego the perceived advantages of spots from cluster networks.

On CW, the split between callers and runners continues to be much less bimodal than on SSB (on SSB, fully 30% of entrants have no run QSOs; on CW, the equivalent number is below 10%). Indeed, the difference in call/run behaviour on the two modes (and the difference in the way that the behaviour has changed over time) is profound, and probably worthy of further investigation. CW continues to appear to have what would seem to be a much healthier split between the two operating styles:

Assisted and Unassisted

We can see how the relative popularity of the assisted and unassisted categories has changed since they were introduced:

On CW, there are essentially equal numbers of assisted and unassisted logs, while on SSB the unassisted logs handily exceeds the number of assisted logs. My guess, for what it's worth, is that CW assistance is more widespread partly because it (partially) absolves stations from actually being able to copy at high speed, and partly because the RBN is so effective that essentially all CQing stations are spotted.

I find it particularly interesting that the number of CWU logs has remained essentially unchanged ever since the unassisted category was created.

Looking at the number of QSOs appearing the unassisted and assisted logs:

(The lines are for the median number of logs; the vertical bars run from 10% to 90%, 20% to 80%, 30% to 70%, 40% to 80%, with opacity increasing in that order.)

A long-term downward trend in the numbers of QSOs in the assisted logs ceased in 2016, and since then the median number of QSOs in the assisted logs has remained essentially unchanged. The more or less constant difference of roughly one hundred QSOs between CW and SSB logs (in favour of CW) continues.

Inter-Zone QSOs

We can show the number of inter-zone QSOs, both band-by-band and in total. In these plots, the number of QSOs is accumulated every ten minutes, so there are six points per hour.

As expected at this point in the cycle, there were a negligible number of QSOs on 10m, in either the SSB or the CW events.

Last year, I wrote:

In 2018, activity decreased substantially on 15m as compared to 2017. We certainly seem to be very close to the bottom of the cycle. Perhaps by next year there will be a slight improvement in conditions.

That slight improvement did in fact occur, so perhaps that bodes well for next year.

Especially on CW, 20m was the place to be.

As usual, CW dominates on 40m (and the other low bands), and the bulk of CW DX activity was in the first few hours (unlike 2018, which was exceptional for the activity on the last few hours of the contest).

80m was also dominated by CW, with, as usual, the bulk of DX activity in the first six hours.

160m paints a similar story to 80m, although the raw QSO counts are much lower. 2019 appears not to have quite matched 2018, which was the strongest year on record for CW DX activity on 160m in the first six hours of the contest.

The overall picture continues to be one of typical low bottom-of-the-cycle activity.

Most-Logged Stations in CQ WW CW and SSB Contests: 2019, and the decade from 2010 to 2019

The public CQ WW CW and SSB logs allow us easily to tabulate the stations that appear in the largest number of entrants' logs. For 2019, the ten stations with the largest number of appearances in CQ WW SSB logs were:

Callsign	Appearances	% logs
EF8R	11,916	67
D4C	10,791	64
CN3A	9,720	60
LZ9W	8,558	54
PJ4K	8,094	51
YT5A	7,886	52
M6T	7,823	53
FY5KE	7,223	47
DF0HQ	7,189	50
V26B	7,050	46

The first column in the table is the callsign. The second column is the total number of times that the call appears in logs. That is, if a station worked CN3A on six bands, that will increment the value in the second column of the CN3A row by six. The third column is the percentage of logs that contain the callsign at least once.

Similarly, the ten stations with the largest number of appearances in CQ WW CW 2019 were:

Callsign	Appearances	% logs
EF8R	14,077	78
CN3A	11,507	70
LZ9W	10,666	69
9A1A	10,557	70
PJ2T	10,224	60
PJ4K	9,936	61
CR3W	9,880	63
YT5A	9,686	67
M6T	8,969	62
TI7W	8,626	52

Note the substantial difference between the SSB and CW tables.

I find it interesting to see which stations have had the most long-term activity on the contests. For the ten years from 2010 to 2019 on SSB we find:

Callsign	Appearances	% logs
CN3A	89,295	60
LZ9W	86,369	55
DF0HQ	78,486	53
PJ2T	72,914	46
OT5A	70,291	50
K3LR	69,446	48
P33W	67,993	49
A73A	66,582	47
EF8R	62,665	42
V26B	60,996	42

And for the same years on CW:

Callsign	Appearances	% logs
9A1A	105,580	69
LZ9W	100,056	66
PJ2T	95,893	58
DF0HQ	86,035	61
P33W	85,470	59
W3LPL	75,857	51
K3LR	74,648	51
PJ4A	71,625	51
LX7I	66,663	50
D4C	65,164	40

Evaluating Station Contributions to the Reverse Beacon Network: 2019

Applying the algorithm described here to the Reverse Beacon Network data for 2019 (895MB; MD5: 5a086cc15f7caf0e256ba15b108d4736) we obtain the following tables for the stations that, on the basis of that algorithm, made the highest-valued contributions  for the year:

Band	Position	Call	Value
ALL	1	DO4DXA	356,058
ALL	2	DL9GTB	331,923
ALL	3	HA1VHF	296,627
ALL	4	KM3T	277,224
ALL	5	LZ7AA	276,057
ALL	6	OH6BG	252,021
ALL	7	EA5WU	243,956
ALL	8	ES5PC	238,456
ALL	9	JO1YYP	230,719
ALL	10	ON5KQ	209,413

Band	Position	Call	Value
10m	1	DO4DXA	35,814
10m	2	ON5KQ	26,640
10m	3	DL8LAS	26,356
10m	4	DL9GTB	25,225
10m	5	OH6BG	21,004
10m	6	N6TV	14,622
10m	7	G0LUJ	12,808
10m	8	KM3T	12,238
10m	9	WZ7I	10,759
10m	10	SM7IUN	10,434

Band	Position	Call	Value
12m	1	OH6BG	3,718
12m	2	M0ORD	3,085
12m	3	LZ4UX	2,960
12m	4	CT1BOH	2,748
12m	5	DL9GTB	2,120
12m	6	ON5KQ	2,037
12m	7	EA5WU	1,947
12m	8	JO1YYP	1,838
12m	9	JA4ZRK	1,651
12m	10	IT9GSF	1,608

Band	Position	Call	Value
15m	1	CX6VM	22,899
15m	2	OH6BG	14,161
15m	3	EA5WU	12,204
15m	4	VU3KAZ	11,177
15m	5	DO4DXA	10,600
15m	6	LZ7AA	9,799
15m	7	ON5KQ	9,671
15m	8	S50ARX	9,438
15m	9	JH7CSU-1	9,222
15m	10	ES5PC	9,174

Band	Position	Call	Value
17m	1	OH6BG	16,311
17m	2	EA8BFK	13,649
17m	3	CT1BOH	12,443
17m	4	ON5KQ	11,112
17m	5	EA5WU	11,052
17m	6	KM3T	10,815
17m	7	CX6VM	9,437
17m	8	WZ7I	7,739
17m	9	VE7CC	7,353
17m	10	M0ORD	7,259

Band	Position	Call	Value
20m	1	DL9GTB	112,818
20m	2	KM3T	105,617
20m	3	LZ7AA	98,619
20m	4	EA5WU	80,450
20m	5	VE2WU	78,928
20m	6	OH6BG	78,843
20m	7	ES5PC	74,357
20m	8	DO4DXA	68,167
20m	9	KM3T-2	67,217
20m	10	W1NT	65,714

Band	Position	Call	Value
30m	1	ON5KQ	27,659
30m	2	OH6BG	25,184
30m	3	F6IIT	22,402
30m	4	TF4M	20,040
30m	5	EA5WU	19,456
30m	6	9A1CIG	17,287
30m	7	DL9GTB	17,107
30m	8	DO4DXA	15,458
30m	9	SM7IUN	15,416
30m	10	CT1BOH	14,781

Band	Position	Call	Value
40m	1	JO1YYP	118,665
40m	2	DO4DXA	107,302
40m	3	LZ7AA	105,136
40m	4	DL9GTB	91,833
40m	5	KM3T	81,602
40m	6	HA1VHF	75,952
40m	7	SM6FMB	72,566
40m	8	EA5WU	72,422
40m	9	F6IIT	72,332
40m	10	ES5PC	67,732

Band	Position	Call	Value
80m	1	DO4DXA	81,118
80m	2	DL9GTB	53,012
80m	3	LZ7AA	46,898
80m	4	ES5PC	44,063
80m	5	SM6FMB	41,849
80m	6	IK3STG	38,009
80m	7	HA1VHF	37,364
80m	8	HB9JCB	36,940
80m	9	SM7IUN	36,537
80m	10	S50ARX	36,346

Band	Position	Call	Value
160m	1	HA1VHF	103,581
160m	2	AC0C	31,099
160m	3	DO4DXA	29,488
160m	4	JO1YYP	29,032
160m	5	DK8NE	21,247
160m	6	VE6WZ	20,584
160m	7	ES5PC	19,651
160m	8	K9IMM	16,506
160m	9	ON5KQ	15,862
160m	10	UD4FD	15,400

Cleaned and Augmented Logs (including RBN data) for CQ WW CW and SSB Contests, 2005 to 2019

Cleaned and augmented versions of the logs for the CQ WW CW and SSB contests are now available for the period 2005 to 2019.

Links to the cleaned and augmented logs may be followed here.

The cleaned logs are the result of processing the QSO: lines from the entrants' submitted Cabrillo files to ensure that all fields contain valid values and all the data match the format required in the rules. Any line containing illegal data in a field (for example, a zone number greater than 40, or a date/time stamp that is outside the contest period) has simply been removed. Also, only the QSO: lines are retained, so that each line in the file can be processed easily. All zones are rendered with two digits, so as to further simplify processing by scripts or programs.

The augmented logs contain the same information as the cleaned logs, but with the addition of some useful (derived) information on each line. In addition to the actual logs, two additional sources of information are used when appropriate:

1.  AD1C has recently made accessible historical cty.dat and associated files. A copy of the cty,dat files is here. These allow us to use callsign-based multiplier lists as they would have existed at the time of each contest.
   
   
2. From 2009 onwards, the Reverse Beacon Network (RBN) has been available for the CW contests. This allows us to include the time since a station was last posted by the RBN (see below for details).

The information added to each line of the augmented logs comprises:

1. A sequence of four characters that are the same for each entry in a particular log:
•  a. letter "A" or "U" indicating "assisted" or "unassisted"
•  b. letter "Q", "L", "H" or "U", indicating respectively QRP, low power, high power or unknown power level
•  c. letter "S", "M", "C" or "U", indicating respectively a single-operator, multi-operator, checklog or unknown operator category [ the contest organisers have stated that checklogs are not made public, but in fact at least some of them from the early years have been, hence the need for the "C" category ]
•  d. character "1", "2", "+" or "U", indicating respectively that the number of transmitters is one, two, unlimited or unknown
2. A four-digit number representing the time if the contact in minutes measured from the start of the contest. (I realise that this can be calculated from the other information on the line, but it saves subsequent script-based processors of the file considerable time to have the number readily available in the file without having to calculate it for each QSO.)
3. Band
4. A set of fourteen flags, each -- apart from column k and column n -- encoded as T/F: 
   • a. QSO is confirmed by a log from the second party 
   • b. QSO is a reverse bust (i.e., the second party appears to have bust the call of the first party) 
   • c. QSO is an ordinary bust (i.e., the first party appears to have bust the call of the second party) 
   • d. the call of the second party is unique 
   • e. QSO appears to be a NIL 
   • f. QSO is with a station that did not send in a log, but who did make 20 or more QSOs in the contest 
   • g. QSO appears to be a country mult 
   • h. QSO appears to be a zone mult 
   • i. QSO is a zone bust (i.e., the received zone appears to be a bust)
   • j. QSO is a reverse zone bust (i.e. the second party appears to have bust the zone of the first party)
   • k. This entry has three possible values rather than just T/F:
     • T: QSO appears to be made during a run by the first party
     • F: QSO appears not to be made during a run by the first party
     • U: the run status is unknown because insufficient frequency information is available in the first party's log
   • l. QSO is a dupe
   • m. QSO is a dupe in the second party's log
   • n. RBN information (see below)
5. If the QSO is a reverse bust, the call logged by the second party; otherwise, the placeholder "-"
6. If the QSO is an ordinary bust, the correct call that should have been logged by the first party; otherwise, the placeholder "-"
7. If the QSO is a reverse zone bust, the zone logged by the second party; otherwise, the placeholder "-"
8.  If the QSO is an ordinary zone bust, the correct zone that should have been logged by the first party; otherwise, the placeholder "-" 

RBN Information

In the CW contests from 2009 onwards, the RBN was active, automatically spotting the frequency at which any station calling CQ was transmitting. To reflect possible use of RBN information, the augmented files now include a fourteenth flag. For the sake of uniformity, this column is present in all the augmented files, regardless of whether the RBN actually contributed useful information to a particular contest.

Each QSO has one of several characters in the fourteenth column of flags. These characters should be interpreted as follows:

'-'
  No useful RBN-derived information is available for this QSO.

'0'
  The worked station (i.e., the second call on the log line) appears to have begun to CQ on this frequency within (roughly) 60 seconds prior to the QSO.

'A' to 'Z'
  For the nth letter of the alphabet: the worked station appears to have been CQing on this frequency for (roughly) n minutes prior to the QSO.

'+'
  The worked station appears to have been CQing for more than 26 minutes on this frequency.

'<'
  Because the the RBN is distributed, and because each contest entrant station has its own clock, there is generally a skew between the reading of the clock of the station making the QSO and the timestamp from the RBN at which it believes a posting was made (indeed, it's unclear from the RBN's [lack of] documentation exactly how the timestamp on an individual RBN posting is to be interpreted). If the character '<' appears in the the RBN column, it indicates that the raw values of the clocks suggest that the QSO took place up to two minutes before the RBN reported the worked station commencing to CQ at this frequency. When this occurs, the most likely interpretation is that there is non-negligible skew between the two clocks, and the station was actually worked almost as soon as a CQ was posted by the RBN. This character also appears if the RBN erroneously posts the worked station as CQing at this frequency shortly after the QSO. But it might also mean that the entrant was simply lucky and found the CQing station just as it fired up on a new frequency.

Notes:

• The encoding of some of the flags requires subjective decisions to be made as to whether the flag should be true or false; consequently, and because CQ has yet to understand the importance of making their scoring code public, the value of a flag for a specific QSO line in some circumstances might not match the value that CQ would assign. (Also, CQ has more data available in the form of check logs, which are generally not made public.)
• I made no attempt to deduce or infer the run status of a QSO in the second party's log (if such exists), regardless of the status in the first party's log. This allows one cleanly to perform correct statistical analyses anent the number of QSOs made by running stations merely by excluding QSOs marked with a U in column k.
• No attempt is made to detect the case in which both participants of a QSO bust the other station's call. This is a problematic situation because of the relatively high probability of a false positive unless both stations accurately log the frequency as opposed to merely the band. (Also, on bands on which split-frequency QSOs are common, the absence of both transmit and receive frequency is a problem; I confess that I have never understood why Cabrillo was not designed to report both transmit and receive frequencies -- or even to define clearly which frequency is to be reported. I digress.) Because of the likelihood of false positives, it seems better, given the presumed rarity of double-bust QSOs, that no attempt be made to mark them.
• The entries for the zones in the case of zone or reverse zone busts are normalised to two-digit values.