2010 CQ WW CW Contest K5ZD

                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW

Call: K5ZD
Operator(s): K5ZD
Station: K5ZD

Class: SOAB HP
QTH: W1
Operating Time (hrs): 42
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:  163    15       57
   80:  725    24       90
   40: 1359    35      114
   20: 1209    35      122
   15: 1077    29      106
   10:   76    16       35
------------------------------
Total: 4609   154      524  Total Score = 9,117,066

Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club

Comments

Wow, who would have expected a score like this with the conditions predicted for the weekend?!

Had planned a casual effort, but the activity and conditions were addicting! Once I started, I just couldn’t stop operating.  Luckily my family is familiar with this addiction and knew to just ignore me until the contest was over.

Highlights

The low bands were great.  Knew it was going to be good when I called Europeans on 160m and they could hear me on the first call.  No QRN here in the USA or Europe really helps the scores.

Conditions on Saturday morning.  I woke up around 1130z and did some low band DXing.  As I was finishing on 40m I moved the second radio from 80m to 15m. Whoa!  The band was filled with booming signals.  My first CQ at 1156z resulted in 201 QSOs in the next 60 minutes.  I completely skipped 20m for the morning.

40m on both afternoons.  No matter how many times I do WWCW from here I can’t get used to going to 40m when the sun is still up. Got there at 21z on Saturday and had 4 fantastic (100+) hours in a row on the same frequency.  A little earlier on Sunday and almost the same result.  Thus the big 40m QSO total.

80m Saturday night. I slept for two hours between 02-04z.  Worked some DX on 160m and then found 3506 available. Had 3 hours straight of great rate (until ED9M decided it was his frequency).  I don’t have the loudest signal on 80m so it was really nice to get so many QSOs.  Definitely helped the score.

10 meters. Worked *one* European. Worked ST2AR for the only zone 34 heard all weekend!

Elecraft K3. This radio has the best receiver. It would have been impossible to hear so many of the weak stations, especially on 40 and 80, without it.

Russians and Eastern Europe. Fantastic activity from this area on all bands.  I love the new Russian callsigns.  Some of them reminded me of prefixes from long ago. UD, UC, RJ, etc.

USA record? The old USA record was from the year 2000 (8.7M with 4484/161/531) and included 1189 QSOs on 10m! The difference this year was the balance across all bands. A rare occurrence.

Lowlights

SO2R. Had 208 second radio QSOs. Rate was so high I had almost no time to work on the second radio. 🙁 

Not operating full time.  Since I had not planned a serious effort, I did not do any special preparation for food or sleep.  Also spent much time the first night DXing. It was only at the halfway point that I realized the score was special and I should be more serious.  The second day was full attention and motivation!

People who don’t send their call enough. I think I complain about this every year. The increase in DX Cluster (and skimmer) use keeps making it worse. Part of the challenge of single op.

Thanks to everyone who make this contest so much fun!

Station

Radio 1  K3 + Alpha 76CA
Radio 2  FT1000D + Ameritron AL-1200

Tower 1

40-2CD @ 110′
205CA stack at 100’/50′
155CA stack at 66’/33′
160m Ground Plane hanging from tower

Tower 2

6-el 10m @ 90′
80m 4 square wires hanging from tower
Shunt fed for 160m

Tower 3

TH7DXX @ 40′ (always pointing South)

By Continent

          160M    80M    40M    20M    15M    10M   Total      %

    EU     111    627   1190   1022    964      2    3916    85.0
    AF       4     12     20     25     18     11      90     2.0
    AS       3     15     46     66     11      0     141     3.1
    NA      41     58     65     56     38     22     280     6.1
    SA       4      7     19     32     35     41     138     3.0
    OC       0      6     19      8     11      0      44     1.0

Rates

Hour   160M     80M     40M     20M     15M     10M    Total     Cumm    Off

0000Z  --+--   --+--   79/47   --+--   --+--   --+--   79/47     79/47  
0100Z  10/13     -     61/25    5/4      -       -     76/42    155/89  
0200Z  15/8    60/42     -       -       -       -     75/50    230/139 
0300Z    -    106/22     -      6/8      -       -    112/30    342/169 
0400Z  15/9    43/6      -      2/3      -       -     60/18    402/187  18
0500Z  50/14     -     11/6     1/2      -       -     62/22    464/209 
0600Z   1/2      -    150/10     -       -       -    151/12    615/221 
0700Z  13/6    79/4     5/1      -       -       -     97/11    712/232 
0800Z  --+--   33/15   28/5    --+--   --+--   --+--   61/20    773/252 
0900Z    -      6/5    23/8      -       -       -     29/13    802/265  37
1000Z   2/1     2/0    31/1      -       -       -     35/2     837/267  36
1100Z    -      4/3    13/6      -      8/8      -     25/17    862/284  31
1200Z    -       -       -       -    196/36     -    196/36   1058/320 
1300Z    -       -       -       -    154/5     5/8   159/13   1217/333 
1400Z    -       -       -       -    133/13    6/9   139/22   1356/355 
1500Z    -       -       -    179/44    7/0     1/1   187/45   1543/400 
1600Z  --+--   --+--   --+--  172/9     4/4    --+--  176/13   1719/413 
1700Z    -       -       -    128/10   16/8      -    144/18   1863/431 
1800Z    -       -       -     37/3    15/16    8/5    60/24   1923/455  25
1900Z    -       -       -     51/24   18/13     -     69/37   1992/492 
2000Z    -       -      2/2    19/9    17/10    2/0    40/21   2032/513 
2100Z    -       -    133/2      -      1/0      -    134/2    2166/515 
2200Z    -       -    137/4     6/2      -       -    143/6    2309/521 
2300Z    -       -    104/2    18/12     -       -    122/14   2431/535 
0000Z  --+--   16/3   101/5     3/2    --+--   --+--  120/10   2551/545 
0100Z   3/3    26/1    12/0     1/1      -       -     42/5    2593/550  24
0200Z    -       -       -       -       -       -      0/0    2593/550  60
0300Z   4/3      -       -       -       -       -      4/3    2597/553  56
0400Z  28/7    51/2      -       -       -       -     79/9    2676/562 
0500Z   1/0   104/1    13/4      -       -       -    118/5    2794/567 
0600Z  17/4    93/0     2/2      -       -       -    112/6    2906/573 
0700Z   3/1    53/1    41/2      -       -       -     97/4    3003/577 
0800Z  --+--    2/2   103/0    --+--   --+--   --+--  105/2    3108/579 
0900Z   1/1     2/2    51/7      -       -       -     54/10   3162/589   3
1000Z    -      4/2      -       -       -       -      4/2    3166/591  60
1100Z    -       -     12/5    77/2     1/0      -     90/7    3256/598 
1200Z    -       -       -    170/3     6/0      -    176/3    3432/601 
1300Z    -       -       -     56/2   118/1      -    174/3    3606/604 
1400Z    -       -       -      4/0   172/7      -    176/7    3782/611 
1500Z    -       -       -      7/4   117/3     7/8   131/15   3913/626 
1600Z  --+--   --+--   --+--   --+--   66/4    19/13   85/17   3998/643 
1700Z    -       -       -     89/2     9/1     3/1   101/4    4099/647 
1800Z    -       -       -     84/5     2/1     8/2    94/8    4193/655 
1900Z    -       -       -     64/4     6/2    12/2    82/8    4275/663 
2000Z    -       -     57/0     8/0     2/0     5/2    72/2    4347/665  24
2100Z    -       -    125/4      -      9/3      -    134/7    4481/672 
2200Z    -       -     63/1    22/2      -       -     85/3    4566/675 
2300Z    -     41/3     2/0      -       -       -     43/3    4609/678 

Tot:  163/72 725/114 1359/149 1209/157 1077/135 76/51 

Stations worked on 6 bands:

9L5VT  CR2X  DQ4W  P40C  PJ2T  PJ4A  VP2E/K1XM  ZF1A    

Best 60 minutes: 204 (a new personal record for CW)