The week after CQ World Wide SSB always feels quieter, but this one saves its best for Halloween weekend. The ARRL EME Contest tops the calendar on October 31 and November 1, sending moonbounce operators to their dishes on CW, phone and digital, while two HF contests share the same hours and a four-hour sprint closes Saturday night in North America. Add a major new Pacific DXpedition, a Georgia state convention, the final hours of an ISS picture event today, and a minor geomagnetic storm watch for Saturday.
On HF, the Russian WW MultiMode Contest runs from 1200 UTC Saturday, October 31 to 1159 UTC Sunday, November 1, mixing CW, SSB, RTTY and BPSK63. Sharing the window is the UK/EI DX Contest, SSB, from 1200 UTC Saturday to 1200 UTC Sunday on 80, 40, 20, 15 and 10 meters, where United Kingdom and Ireland stations and their district codes build the score. Saturday night North American time brings the North American SSB Sprint, 0000 to 0359 UTC Sunday, a fast four hours famous for its move-after-you-work rule. Midweek warm-ups include the RSGB FT4 Contest today, the SKCC Sprint and UKEICC 80-meter CW contest on Wednesday, October 28, and the Zombie Shuffle on Friday, October 30. CQ WW SSB logs are due by 2359 UTC Tuesday, October 27, under the new 48-hour deadline.
DXers get a changing of the guard. S9R on Sao Tome finishes on Saturday, October 31 after two weeks with three stations on 160 through 6 meters, and JD1BQP from Chichijima in the Ogasawara Islands stays on until Monday, November 2. The big arrival is KH8A from American Samoa: after an airline schedule change, the nine-operator team now plans to be on from Friday, October 30 to November 12 with four stations around the clock on 160 through 6 meters in CW, SSB, FT8 and RTTY. Gavin, GM3GAV, also signs on as FW3GT from Futuna Island on October 31, running CW and some FT8 on 40 through 10 meters, plus some 60 and 80 meters, through November 14. Shorter windows close early: 5W0ZP in Samoa is on through Thursday, October 29, and 3B9/M0CFW on Rodrigues Island wraps up Wednesday, October 28.
On the ground, the Stone Mountain Hamfest hosts the ARRL Georgia State Convention on Friday and Saturday, October 30 and 31, in Lawrenceville, Georgia. Satellite operators should move fast today: the ARISS Series 34 SSTV event from the International Space Station ends at 1745 UTC Monday, October 26, with Robot 36 pictures on 437.550 MHz from RS0ISS, and school contacts are set for Paul Duke STEM High School in Norcross, Georgia today and Smile Academy in Greece on Friday, October 30. Arizona GMRS operators have their standing Sunday regional nets on November 1 at 5:00 PM MST on the Southwest Community Radio System, including the Heliograph 700, Pinal 675 and Tucson 600 repeaters, and four rural SWCRS repeaters remain open to every licensed GMRS user.
Space weather sets the tone. The Space Weather Prediction Center reported a Sunday flux of 89, and its 27-day outlook holds flux at 88 today and 84 for the rest of the week, while the three-day forecast expects the planetary K index to peak at just 2 through Wednesday, with no G1 storming and only a slight chance of minor radio blackouts today and Tuesday. The weekend is the wrinkle: recurrent coronal hole high-speed streams are likely to bring G1 minor storm levels on Saturday, October 31, with a planetary A index of 30 and a largest Kp of 5 that day, easing to active conditions on Sunday.