The week opens with students on the air and closes with the biggest contest weekend of the fall. The ARRL School Club Roundup runs Monday through Friday, October 19 to 23, from 1300 UTC Monday to 2359 UTC Friday, with elementary, middle, high school and college clubs working each other and the rest of us, so listen for fresh school calls all week. Also closing this week is the 21st ARRL Online Auction, which runs through Thursday, October 22 with more than 200 items, including QST Product Review gear, vintage books and four ARRL Lab mystery boxes, with proceeds benefiting ARRL education programs.
The headline event is the CQ World Wide DX Contest, SSB, from 0000 UTC Saturday, October 24 to 2359 UTC Sunday, October 25. Work as many CQ zones and countries as you can on the six contest bands, 160, 80, 40, 20, 15 and 10 meters, exchanging a signal report and your CQ zone. Logs are due by 2359 UTC Tuesday, October 27, so plan to submit promptly. Smaller events fill the gaps first: CWops Tests this week and the K1USN Slow Speed Test on Friday, October 23, at a maximum of 20 words per minute, are friendly warm-ups for newer operators.
DX hunters have a full slate. S9R from Sao Tome and Principe is on the air from Tamarindos through October 31 with three stations on 160 through 6 meters on CW, SSB, RTTY and FT8, with a QO-100 satellite operation also planned. JD1BQP from Chichijima, Ogasawara, runs October 17 to November 2 on 160 through 6 meters, and stations in Dominica are active October 17 to 27, including an entry in CQ WW SSB as J75A. Starting later this week are a Palau group, October 21 to 29, as T88MB, T88CZ, T88DK, T88ED and T88DN from Koror, V63SC from Micronesia October 22 to 26, and an FP-prefix operation from St. Pierre and Miquelon October 21 to 26 that also includes the contest.
If you would rather meet in person, Saturday, October 24 brings ARRL Day in the Park at Ridgeland, Mississippi, hosting the ARRL Mississippi Section Convention, and the Harrisburg Radio Amateurs Club Oktoberfest Hamfest in Pennsylvania the same day. On the air that day, Sweden's historic SAQ Grimeton Alexanderson alternator is scheduled to send its United Nations Day peace message on 17.2 kilohertz CW. The space station offers two draws: an ARISS school contact with Sarasota Military Academy in Florida on Thursday, October 22 at 1623 UTC on 145.800 megahertz, and the ARISS SSTV event, Expedition 75 Series 34, from October 22 to 25 on 437.55 megahertz in Robot 36 mode.
GMRS operators are not left out: the Southwest Community Radio System standalone Arizona regional nets, Tucson 600, Pinal 675 and Heliograph 700, run Sundays at 5:00 PM MST, alongside its Sunday Winlink net, open all day UTC to check-ins sent to N7WSS. Space weather will shape the weekend: NOAA put the solar flux at 137 on October 18, with an A-index of 6, and an M1.6 flare erupted from Region 4551 on Monday. A G1 minor geomagnetic storm watch is in effect for October 19 and 20 from a coronal hole high-speed stream, with the greatest expected Kp of 4.67, so expect unsettled HF early in the week, then watch whether conditions settle in time for CQ WW.