This week, we’ll take a peek at one of the great RTTY events on the annual calendar – the Volta RTTY DX contest coming up this weekend. If you want to score 100 million points in a weekend, then this one is for you.

We’ll also look at the CQ-M International DX contest for CW and phone operators. So let’s get started….

100 million points in a single contest?

That’s entirely achievable in the Volta RTTY test, sponsored by the  SSB and RTTY Club of COMO and A.R.I. (Associazione Radioamatori Italiani).

This year it’s the 51st running of the Volta RTTY, honoring the Italian discoverer of electricity, Alessandro Volta.

I’ve been in this one every year since 2003. Now, that year I earned 81,000 points and finished 144th overall. Over the years, I have managed to reach the top 25 pack a couple of times, and in 2013 when conditions were at their peak for solar cycle 24, the score I submitted was 299 million.

What a blast this one is, folks.

How do scores get so high? It’s simple. Every contact you make earns points based on a table that gives you more points for contacts in zones farther away from you.

So, if I am in California (in CQ Zone 3) and I work a station in Germany (in Zone 14) we both get 26 points for the contact.

Volta RTTY points table

What countries are in which CQ zones?

That alone can make the contest a whole lot of fun, and encourages the effort it takes to make those DX or long-distance QSOs.

But there’s a whole lot more.

Now, you get to multiply all those contact points times the number of DXCC countries and call areas in Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand and the USA. Now, that makes your score rocket up the charts. But then it gets really interesting.

In Volta RTTY, you then multiply that calculation times the number of contacts you have made. Boom – into the stratosphere.

Last year, even with conditions that were mediocre at best, I managed 155 contacts in 55 countries and call areas – a pitiful performance really – and my claimed score was 16 million points. I put in six hours, which works out to 2.7 million points per hour.

The year before, when propagation was still pretty good, I had 261 contacts and 106 multipliers, and finished with almost 153 million points in 8 hours. That’s more than 19 million points per hour.

It’s pretty neat to see a seven-digit score.

If you go by recent conditions, I think we’re currently experiencing propagation similar to what we saw back in 2008.

That year for Volta RTTY, the solar flux was 67 – lower than it is right now – but the A-index was just 3 with quiet geomagnetic conditions. We might get a bit lucky and have a more flux than that to keep the bands open longer this weekend.

Anyway, in our comparator year of 2008 I landed 16 million points with 180 contacts and 48 countries and call areas – a rather piddly amount, and over the nine years since then participation in RTTY contests has increased dramatically.

Keep in mind that if you work all 10 call areas in the US, Canada and Japan, that’s 30 multipliers – on just one band. You can work ‘em all on each band, too.

If there’s any opening to Europe from where you are (or to North America if you’re in Europe), this weekend could produce 20 million points or more in just a few hours, without even trying too hard.

A quick tip for North American stations – let’s get on 80M during the evening. In most years, there are very few stations running Volta RTTY on 80M and that’s a huge lost opportunity.

It’s entirely possible to work all 10 US call areas there, and another half-dozen Canadian call areas.