CQ WW SSB 2026: The Smackdown, the Beach, and Your First Hour
The Signal Report · CQ WW SSB 2026 · October 24–25
CQ World Wide SSB starts at 0000 UTC Saturday, which is Friday evening across the US: 5 PM Pacific, 6 Mountain, 7 Central, 8 Eastern. It runs 48 hours, and it is the biggest weekend in amateur radio. This year it comes with a grudge match, a beach, and an open invitation.
The smackdown
In 2011, Mitch K7RL and I set the W7 Multi-Single record in CQ WW SSB from his cliff on Camano Island, through a windstorm and a power outage. The record we took down that weekend belonged to Chris KL9A and N6MJ. This year Mitch defends it with Tony N7DX, two operators and no army, while the KM7W crew brings an army to Chris’s new station in Shawmut, Montana, to take it back. The trash talk has been flying all week, all of it between friends who will shake hands when the log closes.
Mitch’s call to arms → · The story of the Butte →
Three stations to work
K7RL, Mitch and Tony on Camano Island, Washington, 400 feet above salt water. KM7W, the Montana army, Zone 4. And ZF2B, Richard NN3W, a Greyline owner, single operator and low power with verticals at the tide line in Grand Cayman. A Caribbean multiplier on 40 after dark is worth five contacts to you. Why the beach beats the tower →
Work all three. Make each of them earn it. Then pick a side in the comments on our Facebook page: #KM7W or #K7RL.
Your First CQ WW, in One Hour
1. Listen first. Saturday morning, the top half of 20 meters. After dark, 40. The whole world calling CQ at once.
2. Work twenty. Answer the loud ones. The exchange is 59 and your CQ zone: 3 for the West Coast, 4 for the middle, 5 for the East. Good operators slow down for you.
3. Use the cluster, legally. Enter as Single Operator Assisted, Low Power, and spotting is allowed, so the live cluster in the Clubhouse becomes your map.
4. Log it and send it. N1MM Logger+ is free, or log on paper. Submit within five days at cqww.com, then post your score at 3830scores.com, however small.
#Greyline: How We Find Each Other
Running a Greyline this weekend? Put #Greyline in your 3830 soapbox, your posts, your videos. Listen for each other, work each other.
The Greyline Roll Call: every owner who posts any score to 3830 with #Greyline goes on the wall in the Clubhouse and in the next Net. Twenty contacts counts.
The Greyline Award: the top score by a Greyline owner takes home a mini Greyline flagpole, built on our bench, with your call on the plate. Claimed scores at 3830 decide; if it’s close, the official CQ WW results do.
Follow along
The live scoreboard → shows the big stations in real time all weekend. The Clubhouse → runs the live cluster, the solar numbers and both auroral ovals: free, no login. And if your antenna went up this year, film thirty shaky seconds of it in the contest and send it to us →.
The results
Come back Monday. Who took the record, the side-picking tally, the Roll Call, and the best contacts from Greyline owners all land right here.
73,
Jon KL2A
Greyline Performance · Sun Valley, Idaho
