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Contest Logs

Major HF contests (CQ WW, CQ WPX, ARRL DX, and others) generate hundreds of thousands of Cabrillo log submissions. Each log entry is a confirmed two-way QSO: both stations copied each other's callsign, signal report, and exchange. A logged QSO means the path was workable at contest-grade power — typically 100 W to 1500 W on SSB, RTTY, or CW.

Contest logs are the only SSB ground truth in the dataset. PSK Reporter cannot hear voice. WSPR and RBN are digital-only. If you want to know whether a path supports voice communication, contest logs are the answer.

Logged contacts are assigned an SNR anchor: +10 dB (QSO completed, workable), 0 dB (marginal exchange, edge case). This anchors the upper end of the SNR scale for IONIS model training.


Dataset Statistics

Metric Value
Total QSOs (contest.bronze) 234.3M
Unique Log Files 407K
Contests Covered 15
Date Range 1970-01-01 to 2088-11-30
Unique Callsigns 1.5M
Unique Grid Pairs 613K
Modes SSB, RTTY, CW

Contest Coverage

Contest Years QSOs Primary Mode
CQ World Wide DX (SSB) SSB
CQ World Wide DX (CW) CW
CQ WPX (SSB) SSB
CQ WPX (CW) CW
ARRL DX (SSB) SSB
ARRL DX (CW) CW
Other Mixed

Coming soon — requires per-contest breakdown query.


Band Breakdown

Band QSOs Pct of Total Modes
10m
15m
20m
40m
80m
160m

Coming soon — requires contest band breakdown query.


Mode Breakdown

Mode QSOs Pct SNR Anchor
SSB +10 dB
RTTY +10 dB
CW +10 dB

Coming soon — requires contest mode breakdown query.


Geographic Coverage

Metric Value
Unique DXCC Entities
Unique Grid Pairs
Unique Transmitter Grids

Coming soon — requires contest geographic coverage query.


Data Quality Notes

  • Cabrillo log format varies across operators and logging software. The ingestor normalizes callsigns, bands, modes, and timestamps.
  • Contest exchanges are point-in-time: the timestamp is the UTC time of the logged QSO. Solar conditions are joined at 3-hour Kp resolution.
  • 6.3M rows promoted to contest.signatures after quality filtering and solar joining.
  • DXpedition contacts identified from dxpedition.catalog and handled separately via rbn.dxpedition_signatures with 50x upsampling weight due to rarity.