Pacific Northwest Club Challenge Info

Since the early 1990s, the late Jim Smith VE7FO (sk) was a tireless supporter and key organizer of the Pacific Northwest Challenge. Each year, members of the four largest DX and contest clubs in the PNW compete for the traveling PNW Challenge Cup, awarded at the annual PNWDX convention.

Participating clubs are: Orca DXCC, Spokane DX Association, Willamette Valley DX Club, and the Western Washington DX Club.

The Challenge Cup goes to the club with the highest total score over 10 major contests:

CQWW DX RTTY CQWW DX SSB CQWW DX CW ARRL RTTY ROUNDUP CQ WPX RTTY ARRL DX CW ARRL DX SSB CQ WPX SSB CQ WPX CW IARU HF World Championship
Read more about the PNW Challenge Cup rules (Courtesy of WWDXC)

With Jim's passing in November 2022, Bud VA7ST has assumed his duties in tracking Orca member scores for this annual competition.

Latest Scores

Here are the current year-to-date (preliminary) standings for the participating clubs:

2023-2024 PNW Challenge preliminary standings (June 3, 2024)




A spreadsheet tracks each Orca member's scores throughout the contest calendar. It is updated using information posted by members at 3830ContestScores.com and direct email reports to Bud VA7ST.

How to Ensure Your Scores Are Counted

To enable timely Orca score counting, the best method is to post to 3830ContestScores.com.

https://www.3830scores.com/index.php

The good news is that it appears most -- if not all -- active Orca contesters are already posting their scores to 3830 within a few days of each contest. That makes it a simple task to track our club total through the year.

If you prefer not to post your information to 3830, feel free to send me an email (bud@va7st.ca) with your final claimed score, preferably within a few days after the contest.

While it might seem obvious that your points go to Orca, the rules state that any member of any of the PNW Clubs can allocate their points to any of the clubs in any proportion they choose. Also, there are a number of members who also belong to other PNW Clubs and may wish to allocate their points to the other club.

So, let me know if you want some or all of your score to be allocated to a club other than Orca. If it is not specified, we'll assume you want Orca to count them.

Special Request For Multi-Ops

As above, if your score isn't going to be reported on 3830, please email me your multi-op score, and the callsigns of the operators and which PNW club or clubs they would like to receive their portion of the score. In most cases, that will be Orca, but members have the option to allocate to clubs as they wish.

Note that this also applies to members who operated at a non-member's multi-op. Just one report per operation please.

Where to Submit Your Scores

Don't forget to send your official logs to the contest organizers. Once you've done that, provide your claimed score to Orca in either of the following ways:

Preferred: post your score to https://www.3830scores.com/index.php
By email: bud@va7st.ca

Remember that every point is important. Whether you get on for a handful of contacts or a full-time, all-weekend effort, please consider submitting your scores so they can be counted in the Orca total. We may be out there working as single operators, but we're a big team and your participation makes a difference.

Orca DXCC President Dave Johnston VE7VR accepts the 2013 PNW Challenge Cup from Spokane DX Association Secretary Jay Holcomb WA0WWW at the 2013 Pacific Northwest DX Convention in Spokane, WA.