CQ WW SSB 2025 – CQ3W SOA 10m
Here we go again! CQ WW SSB 2025 in Madeira, operating from the CR3W station in Santana.
As usually we arrived on Tuesday at the station and activated the north tower and put a radio in place. Main setup days as always is Wednesday. We activated the South tower and the portable mast with the 10m 4 element antenna. So we had a spider beam pointing into europe @ 20m, a 4 element monobander @ 12m pointing US and a 3 band Beam with 3 elements @ 16m to 10 for SA. For a change i brought my ICOM IC-7610 from germany instead of the usual IC-7300 to add the RX Antenna option and the SO2VFO capability. The last option was actually not used at all in the contest.
Before the contest I did run some amount of FT8 QSOs and some 400 10m SSB QSOs for propagation and station checks – save to voice for the weekend.
On friday a couple of hours before the contest, we had some VIP visitors comming down to Santana from the CQ9A operation.
From left to right DF7EE aka CQ3W, Chris KL9A, Dan N6MJ, Dave KM3T and Will W9KKN.
Everything was set and the Contest started with with some promissing rates right out of the gate: 109 (half our), 272, 235, only 172 and 238. I thought that is a good start, but unfortunatly it did not hold up that way. I had very slow hours below 200 were I called CQ without any takers. Having CQ9A, CR3A and CT3KN on 10m at the same time die not really help. Just 2600 QSO’s after day one was not very promissing the the hope for an assisted WR was burried right away. Day two was not really better until some very good final hours. Why can it not be above 250 all the time? The fastest hour was 275 QSO’s but I had above 300 from Madeira before. Best 10 minute rate was 360.
Time distribution!
Some nice runs!
As always US is the biggest contributor for QSOs.
At the end I was able to finish a litle bit above last years score, but only a tiny bit:
CQ WW SSB 2024 CQ WW SSB 2025
The official claimed/raw scores are out and the seven year streak has come to an end?
The gap is only 3,5%!
Here is a short video recordes be DM1MT in Schöneck how CQ3W sounds near home:
Thanks!
A big thanks for the Team CR3W who let me use the station in Santana for the 25th time now, and my wife Yvonne who lets me get away two times a year and takes care of everything else!
Another big thanks to an old friend who helped me with the setup, teardown and most important live support during the operating hours! I am going to miss you next time.
I am open for support applications from now on.
The usual map:
As always – FT8 Haters stop here and read this instead:
What I really like at FT8 is the real time feedback of what is going on and how the propagation works out at the moment!
30m
40m
12m
At the and I added 3500 FT8/FT4 QSOs from CT9/DF7EE to the log. 36.984 Q’s total.
CT9/DF7EE holds another 17.000 QSOs, where CQ3W is at 43.000.
I will be back for CQ WPX SSB and CQ WW SSB 2026 – hope to work you!
Here are some impressions from Madeira around Casa Da Tia Clementina:
73 and good dx
Helmut DF7EE
Are you interested in contesting? JOIN THE RRDXA!
