2014 CQ WW CW K5ZD
Call: K5ZD Operator(s): K5ZD Station: K5ZD Class: SOAB(A) HP QTH: W1 Operating Time (hrs): 44.4 Radios: SO2R Summary: Band QSOs Zones Countries ------------------------------ 160: 106 17 62 80: 502 24 96 40: 1163 39 125 20: 1100 39 143 15: 1142 37 138 10: 1009 35 133 ------------------------------ Total: 5022 191 697 Total Score = 12,967,464 Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club
Comments:
What a memorable contest. Fantastic conditions on all bands matched with incredible activity from every part of the globe! CW is alive and well.
Goals:
– Play with new toys
– See if I could push the USA record for SOA up a little higher
Station prep:
Through some good luck, was able to add a second K3 to my station the week of the contest. Also added an AL-1500 amplifier. With two K3s, decided to try the MK2R+ SO2R controller. That took hours to correctly configure, but once working it did everything I could want. Maybe not the best idea to introduce so much new stuff the week of a major.
Spent the one nice day on the previous weekend to put new coax on 10m stack. Knew the 160 antenna was intermittent, but decided to leave it. Should have spent the time to work on it, but didn’t think 160m would be that good.
Contest:
Have converted to Assisted because I was frustrated doing the CQWW and never hearing all the really good DX stations. Now I can run and chase DX both. Contest started great. Fell into a great run frequency on 80m and that was responsible for most of my QSOs on the band. Sometime later in the evening, I noticed the SWR on the 80m 4 square was high when on the NE and SW directions. Visual
inspection the next day didn’t show any broken elements, but I was no longer loud on 80.
Was a struggle to work anything on 160 the first night. I think I had 30 countries and figured that was going to be about it. The second night conditions were much much better. I was weak and had to wait in line, but I eventually got through.
Took a power nap of 20 minutes during the 10z hour. Woke up feeling really good.
What can you say about the high bands? They were awesome. Best 60 minutes was a new personal best of 220. It was tough to decide when to move up and down the bands to capture the most stations. Not to mention the decision of when to run and when to chase spots.
I was flying and totally committed to the contest when the logging software locked up at 1430z. I couldn’t type anything. Logged on paper while rebooting. Started running again and the logging window locked up again. What a moment of despair. Decided to take out the MK2R+ and go back to the W5XD keyer. Took some time to find the right cable and redo everything. Total down time was 45 minutes during some very high rates. It also meant I was no longer
recording the contest.
Back at it. The conditions were too good to stop! Short break during 20z to get some food. Then another at 01z. Had 6+ Meg at the 24 hour mark, but with 590 countries, didn’t see where I could possibly find more. It was encouraging to be on record pace.
Invested most of my time the second night on 80 and 160 chasing anything I could work. Was CQing on 20 and fun to have both Europe and Japan calling in at the same time. Was starting to drag a little and didn’t think 40m was going to be that great at Eu sunrise. Decided sleep would help me be more productive during the morning runs. Slept 3 hours between 0715 and 1030z. I probably
should have tried to stick it out until 0900 and then slept 90 minutes. Except for the off times, I was in the chair.
Sunday was fantastic on the high bands. I would run on one band and chase spots on the other. Then swap. This probably hurt my 10m QSO total, but helped with the mults.
One thing that really helped the rates and score was the amount of time the bands were open to Russia and Eastern Europe. Could not believe the number of Russian stations (and their new short calls) that I worked.
On Sunday afternoon I was turning the 10m antenna to the West and let go of the break to type something. When I tried to turn the beam again, it wouldn’t move. The break disengaged, but the antenna free wheeled to the north. So another thing that will need fixing.
I did experience one more logging window lockup on Sunday afternoon. So now I have to suspect a software problem. More testing required. Have never had problems with Writelog before.
Comments:
– Great score by K3WW. I think I heard him two times all weekend. You wonder how we can both find 60+ countries on 160 and not hear each other more. I think I heard K1DG and K0DQ only 2-3 times all weekend. Big scores require keeping your head down and running all the time.
– Missed zone 34 on 20m and zone 23 on 40m. Did work all 40 zones. I think that is a first in my years of single op. Need to find a better spot management strategy. I couldn’t keep the window open for all bands because there were too many spots from other parts of the world so would open one band at a time.
– Was watching the online scoreboard. K1AR and his magic dipole were matching me QSO for QSO for the first 8 hours. A great source of motivation as I was determined not to let him beat me! Also followed N2IC who was doing a great job from out west in New Mexico.
– I play mental games on Sunday to keep the motivation up. One of them was to see if I could have more than 1000 QSOs on 4 different bands. I made it!
– Very pleased with how often people were sending their calls. Only one time when the station wouldn’t give their call when asked. I spent very little time waiting for stations to ID. Thanks to all for that!
– Having so many bands open makes it easier to find run frequencies. It didn’t really seem to matter if you were low or high in the band. I had a very good run on 28161!
– Really wanted to make the “5000 club”. That is USA single ops with
more than 5K QSOs after log checking. Didn’t think I would get so close or would not have taken the extra 90 minutes of sleep. But, I am going to blame the lost time of the station rewiring for the miss!
– Bad practice. I heard JE3IGA (big S9 signal) call a Caribbean station on 80m at 0830z and send 599 25. This was clearly a remote operation transmitting from the USA. It pollutes the contest to have people give out bogus QSOs/mults like this.
Station:
K3 + Alpha 76CA
K3/P3 + AL-1500
Antennas:
160m: GP, shunt fed tower
80m: 4 square
40m: 40-2CD @110′
20m: 5/5 @ 100’/50′
15m: 5/5 @ 66’/33′
10m: 6/4/4 @ 90’/60’/30′
Mult: TH7DXX @45′
Numbers:
160M 80M 40M 20M 15M 10M Total %
NA 30 57 88 70 43 58 346 6.9
AF 3 8 19 26 16 17 89 1.8
EU 63 410 979 825 960 832 4069 81.0
AS 2 5 39 128 84 34 292 5.8
SA 7 17 26 35 25 50 160 3.2
OC 1 5 11 16 14 18 65 1.3
Rates:
Hour 160M 80M 40M 20M 15M 10M Total Cumm Off 0000Z --+-- --+-- 32/31 81/73 --+-- --+-- 113/104 113/104 0100Z - - 52/26 12/8 33/23 - 97/57 210/161 0200Z 8/12 1/2 80/17 19/10 - - 108/41 318/202 0300Z - 160/40 13/5 - - - 173/45 491/247 0400Z - 133/8 24/9 - - - 157/17 648/264 0500Z 16/15 33/5 17/16 5/4 - - 71/40 719/304 0600Z - 23/15 92/4 6/5 - - 121/24 840/328 0700Z - 18/15 121/5 - - - 139/20 979/348 0800Z --+-- 12/4 103/4 --+-- --+-- --+-- 115/8 1094/356 0900Z 7/8 6/6 40/12 8/6 - - 61/32 1155/388 1000Z 4/5 1/1 7/4 4/5 - - 16/15 1171/403 25 1100Z - - 3/3 138/12 17/23 - 158/38 1329/441 1200Z - - - 44/12 137/35 7/12 188/59 1517/500 1300Z - - - - 53/17 155/35 208/52 1725/552 1400Z - - - - 7/8 117/11 124/19 1849/571 30 1500Z - - - - 3/0 38/11 41/11 1890/582 15 1600Z --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- 143/6 24/17 167/23 2057/605 1700Z - - - - 158/5 20/6 178/11 2235/616 1800Z - - - 27/8 53/17 24/24 104/49 2339/665 1900Z - - - 132/1 - 14/13 146/14 2485/679 2000Z - - - 72/3 13/11 9/2 94/16 2579/695 20 2100Z - - 59/9 10/4 6/2 3/0 78/15 2657/710 2200Z - - 105/1 - - 24/6 129/7 2786/717 2300Z - - 98/3 - 18/3 3/1 119/7 2905/724 0000Z --+-- --+-- 40/1 30/13 1/0 --+-- 71/14 2976/738 0100Z 10/6 - 3/1 6/0 3/0 - 22/7 2998/745 25 0200Z 14/9 26/13 3/0 - - - 43/22 3041/767 0300Z 21/16 5/5 - - - - 26/21 3067/788 0400Z - 10/3 5/2 52/3 3/1 - 70/9 3137/797 0500Z 25/6 6/0 - 32/0 - - 63/6 3200/803 0600Z 1/2 52/1 6/1 - - - 59/4 3259/807 0700Z - - - 4/1 - - 4/1 3263/808 51 0800Z --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- 0/0 3263/808 60 0900Z - - - - - - 0/0 3263/808 60 1000Z - 5/0 - 5/0 - - 10/0 3273/808 44 1100Z - 1/2 7/2 51/1 85/4 - 144/9 3417/817 1200Z - - - 4/4 86/5 91/7 181/16 3598/833 1300Z - - - - 10/4 196/3 206/7 3804/840 1400Z - - - - 68/4 108/9 176/13 3980/853 1500Z - - - - 35/1 97/6 132/7 4112/860 1600Z --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- 115/1 39/0 154/1 4266/861 1700Z - - - 34/5 85/4 3/2 122/11 4388/872 1800Z - - - 116/0 10/1 2/0 128/1 4516/873 1900Z - - - 102/0 - 15/1 117/1 4633/874 2000Z - - - 85/1 - 16/2 101/3 4734/877 2100Z - - 94/7 9/0 - 4/0 107/7 4841/884 2200Z - - 102/0 7/3 - - 109/3 4950/887 2300Z - 10/0 57/1 5/0 - - 72/1 5022/888 Tot: 106/79 502/120 1163/164 1100/182 1142/175 1009/168
Most worked countries:
160M 80M 40M 20M 15M 10M Total
DL 6 67 184 148 156 135 696
EA 3 9 36 39 32 24 143
F 1 9 21 25 31 28 115
G 7 15 58 47 48 47 222
HA 1 16 26 22 31 23 119
I 17 56 62 54 44 233
JA 6 57 29 11 103
OK 5 32 41 28 53 39 198
PA 1 7 30 39 28 22 127
S5 2 10 28 25 22 22 109
SM 2 10 24 22 19 28 105
SP 2 16 52 40 53 44 207
UA 3 52 85 75 119 114 448
UR 3 29 67 24 70 54 247
VE 12 25 38 21 10 14 120
6 bands (37 stations!!!)
4O3A 4V1JR 6Y6N 8P5A 9A1A 9K2HN 9Y4/VE3EY CN2AA CR3A DF0HQ DF3FS DR1A EA5KA EI1Y HC2AO/8 HI3A HK1NA HR2J II9P J6/DL7VOG LX7I LZ9W NP2X NP4Z OM7M OR2F PJ2T PJ4A SO9Q TM6M V26K VC7M VE2IM VP2MDX VP9/N3AD ZD8O ZF1A
5 bands (58 stations!)
6W1RW 9A1P 9A2BD A71BX CR3L CR6K DK4M DL0GL DL0UM DL2VWR DL3YM DL5KUD DL6RAI DL8ZAW DM8T DR4A DR5N G4DDL G5O G5W GD6IA GM5A HA5PT HC1WDT HD2A HG1S HG7T IB9T IO1T IZ4DLR KH7XX LY4A LY7A LZ5R M6W OH2XX OH4MDY OK2D OL6P OQ5M OX3OA P33W P40W PZ5AV RM5A RT3F RZ1OK SN3R SP2LNW SV1ENG TC0A UA4Z UI5F UW3E UX4U YL2SM YT0A YU5R
November 2015: Geoff, KA1IOR, did some analysis of my log and created the following list showing what frequency was used to produce the most contacts (biggest runs), in descending order:
Freq. QSOs
21062: 349
28046: 336
14001: 331
7028: 320
3503: 319
7018: 284
28112: 266
7014: 240
14060: 210
21003: 191
21053: 172
14006: 172
21017: 161
28162: 117
21002: 89
14028: 82
14059: 55
It shows that you can run just about anywhere. In some cases, the higher frequencies are easier to keep. Many people tune from the bottom of the band going up so being down low gives more probability of working everyone. The best run for my score was the one on 3503!