WAG in numbers
WAG in numbers
More than 2000 different German stations were qrv in WAG 2016 (with at least 2 QSOs). This resulted in several 100 000 QSOs with around 3000 foreign stations (counted when appearing at least with two QSOs). The 2080 submitted logs contained nearly 550 000 QSO-lines. 860 different DOKs were logged and of course all districts - even the rare J-multiplier appeared (only deriving from very rare special DOKs starting with J, because DARC has no district J).
The look at the German activity
The DARC-districts are different in size and so is activity - but not necessarily proportional to the size of the district. The most active region in WAG 2016 was district S, the federal state Saxony (district S), with more than 35 000 QSOs. It was followed by neighbouring Thuringia (district X) with more than 26 800 QSOs . The left graph (click to enlarge) shows from where to expect the biggest activity and also that you are well advised to hunt stations with DOKs starting with U, Q and L as there were less than 5 000 QSOs from each if this districts Bavaria-East, Saarland and Ruhrgebiet. Informations about DOKs and more from DL.
Foreign activity (2016): We received logs from 100 DXCC-/WAE-countries. 30 of them had at least ten submitting participants with Russia taking the lead, followed by the USA and Ukraine.
Band-by-band breakdown for all participants (for WAG 2016) by QSOs, points and multipliers plus additional info like mode-distribution, op-time and more (Excel for own further calculations).
Where to expect how much competition?
WAG strives for a healthy size of categories so you won't find one where you are lonely enough to win safely. The most popular category for foreign participants 2016 was again CW low power, followed by Mixed low power. In Germany it was the other way round with Mixed low power being the favourite, followed by CW low power.
The Mixed categories require some strategic thinking for the optimal balance between CW and SSB. There is not one best way: The TopTen see some operators with nearly complete CW activity as well as those with most or even all QSOs in SSB and of course those trying to maximize by really mixing. Remember: You can work a station twice per band - in CW plus in SSB.
For the TopTen of Non-DL mixed categories we counted an average of 13 percent SSB for QRP participants, 41 percent SSB QSOs for low power and 40 percent for high power. The winners had 34 (LP) respectively 43 percent (HP) SSB QSOs after logchecking.
What to score for reaching TopTen?
You have a reasonable amount of time available and look for a competitive goal? The tenth place in each category should give you a clue how the competition is like there.
So here we go with the QSO numbers that were scored after logcheck in the last five years for the tenth place for transmitting stations respectively third place for SWLs.
The very good condx on 10 and 15m in 2013 and the rather good condx 2015 are obviously reflected in most categories as well as the record participation in 2015.
QSO numbers are an easy comprehensible measure and give a good impression of the necessary rate. But WAG is a contest where multipliers count a lot as their number is limited for foreign stations to 25 regular ones and perhaps 26 per band. So the final outcome for a given number of qsos may vary very widely. Therefore we provide here also the final scores of the respective 10th placed stations in each category (again 3rd place in SWL-category) as average for the years from 2012 to 2016.