2015 ARRL DX Contest CW K5ZD
ARRL DX Contest, CW Call: K5ZD Operator(s): K5ZD Station: K5ZD Class: SOAB HP QTH: W1 Operating Time (hrs): 27 Radios: SO2R Summary: Band QSOs Mults ------------------- 160: 110 47 80: 502 59 40: 848 77 20: 849 92 15: 714 79 10: 667 74 ------------------- Total: 3690 428 Total Score = 4,737,960 Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club
Comments:
My son was visiting for the weekend. We were all at a restaurant when the
contest started. Then came home and watched the WRTC2014 video. Didn’t start operating until almost 03z. Went to bed when I got tired.
When I got to 10 meters the first morning, I pressed F4 to call a station and RF got into the keyboard. It was like the F4 key was stuck on. Had to reboot a few times to diagnose the problem. Fixed by wrapping the keyboard cable through some Ferrite a few times.
I always forget how much it helps the rate when everyone in the world is
looking for USA. 🙂 Low bands were very good on Friday night. Even better on Saturday! Was actually able to call CQ and get answers on 160m.
Took plenty of breaks. Walked the dog both days. Took advantage of the warm weather to clean up some snow.
The predicted ice storm on Sat night never happened. Got a bit of rain and that quieted down all the line noise. Could hear a pin drop on 10m on Sunday.
Was having one of the my best hours of the weekend at 14z on Sunday when my son called to say he had rolled his car over on the trip home. An expensive life lesson for him. Luckily no injuries (except to the car!).
Worked 38 stations on 6 bands. That has to be a new record for me. And
another 81 on 5 bands!
Only complaint is the phase noise and side bands that some CW signals seem to have now. Had to abandon several nice run frequencies when a dirty signal would show up on a close frequency. One was from neighbor K1LZ.
This was my first real contest with the YCCC SO2R+ box. Thanks to W1UE for building it for me. Worked great!
Didn’t plan on operating this much, but conditions and rates were too good!
Didn’t spend much time on multipliers until Sunday afternoon.
Contests are way more enjoyable when you plan for fun instead of trying to win something. Was nice to take breaks and stop operating when I got tired of it. But, competing to win is fun too – afterwards.
Station:
Radio 1 – Elecraft K3 + Alpha 76CA
Radio 2 – Elecraft K3 + AL-1500
Tower 1 – 100? Rohn 45G
40m: 40-2CD @ 110?
20m: 205CA @ 100? / 50?
15m: 5-el 15 @70? / 35?
160m: 1/4-wave GP with 4 elevated radials
Tower 2 – 90? Rohn 25G
10m: 6-el 10 @90? with 4/4 @ 60’/30?
80m: Wire 4 square for 80m hung from tower
160m: Tower is shunt fed
Tower 3 – 40? Rohn 25G
TH7DXX at 40? to South
By Continent:
160M 80M 40M 20M 15M 10M Total %
NA 9 11 19 14 12 17 82 2.2
AS 0 2 24 78 79 9 192 5.2
EU 94 472 774 712 591 591 3234 87.6
AF 2 8 11 13 6 9 49 1.3
OC 0 3 5 10 8 8 34 0.9
SA 5 6 15 22 18 33 99 2.7
Rates:
QSO/DX by hour and band
Hour 160M 80M 40M 20M 15M 10M Total Cumm Off 0000Z - - - - - - 0/0 0/0 60 0100Z - - - - - - 0/0 0/0 60 0200Z - - - 14/14 - - 14/14 14/14 0300Z 22/13 50/20 54/21 8/5 - - 134/59 148/73 0400Z 11/3 131/12 7/2 - - - 149/17 297/90 0500Z 22/11 63/4 19/6 - - - 104/21 401/111 0600Z - 12/2 132/11 - - - 144/13 545/124 7 0700Z - - - - - - 0/0 545/124 60 0800Z --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- 0/0 545/124 60 0900Z - - - - - - 0/0 545/124 60 1000Z - - - - - - 0/0 545/124 60 1100Z - - - - - - 0/0 545/124 60 1200Z - - - - 114/33 1/1 115/34 660/158 17 1300Z - - - - 115/9 52/22 167/31 827/189 1400Z - - - - 100/4 56/19 156/23 983/212 1500Z - - - - 74/4 82/6 156/10 1139/222 6 1600Z --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- 0/0 1139/222 60 1700Z - - - 157/27 - 4/2 161/29 1300/251 8 1800Z - - - 102/6 7/3 - 109/9 1409/260 23 1900Z - - - - - - 0/0 1409/260 60 2000Z - - - 111/5 3/1 - 114/6 1523/266 20 2100Z - - - 138/10 12/6 - 150/16 1673/282 2200Z - - 80/3 33/6 10/2 14/4 137/15 1810/297 2300Z - - 63/1 - - - 63/1 1873/298 38 0000Z --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- 15/1 --+-- 15/1 1888/299 48 0100Z - 29/0 54/3 19/11 2/0 - 104/14 1992/313 0200Z 10/6 41/5 26/8 - - - 77/19 2069/332 0300Z 22/7 2/2 54/3 - - - 78/12 2147/344 0400Z 6/0 16/2 67/3 5/2 - - 94/7 2241/351 0500Z 15/6 26/1 2/0 3/0 - - 46/7 2287/358 0600Z - 107/3 30/1 - - - 137/4 2424/362 0700Z 2/1 4/3 139/4 - - - 145/8 2569/370 0800Z --+-- 8/4 52/5 2/0 --+-- --+-- 62/9 2631/379 16 0900Z - - - - - - 0/0 2631/379 60 1000Z - - - - - - 0/0 2631/379 60 1100Z - - 2/1 12/0 - - 14/1 2645/380 51 1200Z - - 6/4 134/3 9/2 - 149/9 2794/389 1300Z - - - 20/1 68/5 5/1 93/7 2887/396 31 1400Z - - - - - 157/6 157/6 3044/402 1500Z - - - - 4/2 72/1 76/3 3120/405 39 1600Z --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- 11/1 153/4 164/5 3284/410 1700Z - - - - 135/3 40/0 175/3 3459/413 1800Z - - - - - - 0/0 3459/413 60 1900Z - - - - - - 0/0 3459/413 60 2000Z - - - - - 21/5 21/5 3480/418 37 2100Z - - 3/0 91/2 7/2 2/1 103/5 3583/423 2200Z - - 58/1 - 24/1 8/2 90/4 3673/427 2300Z - 13/1 - - 4/0 - 17/1 3690/428 40 Total: 110/47 502/59 848/77 849/92 714/79 667/74
Best rate:
60 mins 218 QSOs at 21-Feb-2015 12:30
Worked on 6 bands:
9A1A DH8BQA DJ5AN DJ7UC DJ8OG DL1A DL2CC DP9Z EC2DX ED7P EF7T ES5Q HG1S HG6N HG7T II9P IR1Y IR4X IV3BCA LZ9W NP4Z OL4A OL5Y OL7M OZ5E PJ2T RT4F RU1A RW7K S54W SN3R SO9Q SP2LNW SP8R TI5W UX4U YL2KO YR8D
Worked 111 different entities.
Most worked countries:
160M 80M 40M 20M 15M 10M Total
DL 20 80 124 110 84 91 509
UA 4 26 52 56 76 28 242
I 3 26 55 56 37 52 229
OK 9 40 44 40 35 39 207
UR 3 30 57 39 51 26 206
SP 5 30 34 38 30 33 170
G 2 15 36 35 21 34 143
PA 1 14 28 34 26 27 130
S5 5 21 31 25 16 17 115
EA 2 11 28 30 14 29 114
HA 4 17 26 22 21 19 109
SM 2 19 26 18 21 17 103
JA 10 31 48 8 97
Shows how good conditions were that JA made the list. Worked several JA stations on 4 bands!