2018 CQ WW SSB Contest K5ZD
CQ Worldwide DX Contest, SSB Call: K5ZD Operator(s): K5ZD Class: SO AB HP (Classic) QTH: W1 Operating Time (hrs): 24 Summary: Band QSOs Zones Countries ------------------------------ 160: 53 11 33 80: 190 18 69 40: 229 20 68 20: 1124 27 102 15: 657 25 90 10: 14 6 9 ------------------------------ Total: 2267 107 371 Total Score = 3,120,862 Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club
Comments:
Knew I couldn’t do a full effort so decided to try Classic overlay.
I was finishing up a show on Netflix when the contest started. Operated a bit over 2 hours and then decided to watch the World Series. It was the bottom of the 7th and I figured an hour would be a good break before getting back in time for Europe sunrise. Whoops. 10+ innings later it was now 0730z and bands were quiet. Gave up on trying to maximize my operating time for score. Went for fun instead.
Got up early and found a frequency on 20m. Wow! Rate was great with band open deep into Europe and Russia. Stayed a bit long just because the rate was so good. The Nor’Easter was in full force when I noticed the 20m stack lights were no longer showing the correct indication. An intermittent problem over the past two months. Can’t fix it now. Have choice of upper, lower, or both out of phase for rest of weekend.
When I got to 15m there were some loud signals so called CQ in the first spot I found.
Magic! The band was open with spotlight propagation all around northern Europe. Worked LY, OH and even some Russians. Has a 245 hour! This surprise and discovery are part of what keeps us coming back year after year.
As this excitement was happening, I noticed that my top 15m beam would only turn left. Luckily it was on Europe, but once I started messing with it, it then went to N, then NW, then W. So only the beam at 33′ to Europe for rest of weekend.
My doctor’s office was having a flu shot event so I stopped to go get one. Didn’t seem to impact my ability to operate and was glad to get it out of the way.
Took a nap in the afternoon. Caught a few stations on 10m, but not much. Only SA on 15m. 20m was great into Japan with lots of big signals.
40m is just a mess. I never thought I would be wishing for us to go back to the old days of working split all the time…
Watched the Red Sox again, but I did it while still working the low bands. Had to catch up on mults.
Sunday opened at the same time as Saturday. Got a good frequency and had a nice few hours. It felt like conditions were better, so I decided to go to 15m earlier. This is where being Classic with only 1 radio is a challenge.
I changed bands only to discover conditions were not great. No way to get my frequency back so I did some slow CQing on 15m. Went from a 211 hour on 20m to a 32 hour on 15m. Ouch!
It was weird. How can we have so many SP stations in the log and no Germans?! They were even calling in after their sunset. As the sun moved, suddenly the band opened to Germany. That helped the score! Was sure missing the high 15 Yagi as many of the signals were right at the noise and had to surf the QSB to get in the log.
Had to take some time off to attend a concert my wife was playing in. Got back early enough to get to the 24 hour of operating mark. Although the last 2 hours were slow. Called lots of loud Europeans on 75m that could not hear me. Argh.
Spent time in the last 20 minutes calling a loud CT9ABO. No luck, but did work UR5AS. OK7K was the consistently loud signal from Europe on 160 all weekend.
As always, too many guys who don’t send their call. Although I found them more responsive when asked so maybe we are making progress. Didn’t notice as much splatter as usual, but that was probably because having only one radio and doing lots of CQing limited my visibility.
Never heard zones 18, 23, 24, 26, 28, 29, or 34.
Three hours over 200 were a blast. You see the rate go up and you just hope the frequency stays clear and guys keep calling.
Always amazing how this contest brings out the activity. Worked a lot of guys that were not in the SCP file. Thanks to everyone that go on and helped us all have more fun.
Now off to plan some antenna maintenance!
Randy, K5ZD
Rates
QSO/ZN+DX by hour and band Hour 160M 80M 40M 20M 15M 10M Total Cumm Off 0000Z --+-- --+-- 18/19 26/10 --+-- --+-- 44/29 44/29 0100Z - 23/29 50/32 - - - 73/61 117/90 0200Z 12/13 10/5 - - - - 22/18 139/108 32 RedSox 0300Z - - - - - - 0/0 139/108 60 0400Z - - - - - - 0/0 139/108 60 0500Z - - - - - - 0/0 139/108 60 0600Z - - - - - - 0/0 139/108 60 0700Z 1/0 12/11 25/20 - - - 38/31 177/139 34 0800Z 5/5 8/6 7/3 1/2 --+-- --+-- 21/16 198/155 21 0900Z - - - - - - 0/0 198/155 60 1000Z 1/0 9/7 11/4 6/8 - - 27/19 225/174 28 1100Z - - - 187/48 - - 187/48 412/222 1200Z - - - 218/6 - - 218/6 630/228 1300Z - - - 99/2 87/32 - 186/34 816/262 1400Z - - - - 245/20 - 245/20 1061/282 1500Z - - - - 24/15 - 24/15 1085/297 24 Flu shot 1600Z --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- 22/7 --+-- 22/7 1107/304 60 1700Z - - - 102/9 1/0 - 103/9 1210/313 1800Z - - - 12/2 36/13 5/5 53/20 1263/333 12 Nap 1900Z - - - - - - 0/0 1263/333 60 2000Z - - - - 16/6 - 16/6 1279/339 48 2100Z - - - 54/25 10/5 9/10 73/40 1352/379 2200Z - - 54/5 4/0 - - 58/5 1410/384 23 2300Z - - - - - - 0/0 1410/384 60 RedSox 0000Z --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- 0/0 1410/384 60 0100Z - - - - - - 0/0 1410/384 60 0200Z 7/5 32/10 9/1 - - - 48/16 1458/400 0300Z 11/8 26/7 4/0 - - - 41/15 1499/415 0400Z 12/12 23/6 - - - - 35/18 1534/433 0500Z 4/1 31/5 - - - - 35/6 1569/439 0600Z - 1/0 4/2 - - - 5/2 1574/441 52 Sleep 0700Z - - - - - - 0/0 1574/441 60 0800Z --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- 0/0 1574/441 60 0900Z - - - - - - 0/0 1574/441 60 1000Z - 4/1 7/1 - - - 11/2 1585/443 16 1100Z - - - 142/10 - - 142/10 1727/453 1200Z - - - 211/5 - - 211/5 1938/458 1300Z - - - 19/1 11/3 - 30/4 1968/462 2 1400Z - - - - 42/0 - 42/0 2010/462 60 1500Z - - - - 63/11 - 63/11 2073/473 1600Z --+-- --+-- --+-- 4/0 81/2 --+-- 85/2 2158/475 1700Z - - - 4/0 - - 4/0 2162/475 57 Concert 1800Z - - - - - - 0/0 2162/475 60 1900Z - - - - - - 0/0 2162/475 60 2000Z - - - - - - 0/0 2162/475 60 2100Z - - - 14/0 18/1 - 32/1 2194/476 29 2200Z - - 29/0 20/1 1/0 - 50/1 2244/477 2300Z - 11/0 11/1 1/0 - - 23/1 2267/478 15 Total: 53/44 190/87 229/88 1124/129 657/115 14/15
Best 60 minutes: 252 @ 27-Oct-2018 13:57
Worked on 6 bands:
VP2MDG
Worked on 5 bands:
8P5A 9Y4W CN3A D4C EF8R FY5KE LX7I LZ9W P33W P40T PJ2T PJ4Q SN8B V26B
Most worked countries:
160M 80M 40M 20M 15M 10M Total
DL 1 18 12 160 106 297
I 9 17 83 44 153
SP 2 6 4 55 33 100
F 8 9 52 28 97
UA 1 6 79 8 94
PA 1 9 3 54 24 91
G 1 6 5 50 27 89
EA 7 10 46 25 88
UR 1 6 5 47 17 76