2020 ARRL DX Contest CW K5ZD
ARRL DX Contest, CW - 2020
Call: K5ZD
Class: SO Unlimited HP
Operating Time (hrs): 38.3
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
160: 277 68
80: 690 89
40: 1106 103
20: 1831 115
15: 194 74
10: 18 15
Total: 4116 464 Total Score = 5,729,472
Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club
A few notes
Rates the first 18 hours or so were fantastic. Especially going down to 80 meters in the first hour and getting answers.
It felt like we ran out of people to work on the second day. No matter how good the low bands (and they were really good), this contest needs the easy QSOs on 10 and 15. Maybe again some day!
Amazing runs on 160. There were times Sat night when the band hiss on 80 and 160 sounded like 10m. No QRN at all.
Very nice JA opening on 20m Sat evening. I actually got answers to my CQs!
I had planned a semi-serious effort to go for WRTC qualifying points. Decided before the contest I would sleep both nights. First night went according to plan, but didn’t expect 20 to open so early. It was already rocking when I got there. I had planned to sleep Sat evening when the Europeans were sleeping. That worked out well, but I could see on the scoreboard that AA3B gained 150+ QSOs during that time. I made it my mission on Sunday morning to try to close the gap.
I had also planned to sleep Sun morning at 09z. About that time I came down with some kind food poisoning. Had to take a number of unplanned breaks for that. Thought about quitting many times… Thanks to the incredibly close scoreboard competition with AA3B (we were trading places every hour or so) I was motivated to keep pushing. At the finish we are too close to call.
10m was completely empty on Saturday. Was surprised to see spots on Sunday morning. It must have been e-skip because propagation was very spotlight. 8P5A and VP2MSS were in all the time. Everyone else was nil until their 5 minutes of propagation appeared.
DX contests are funny. I can run guys like crazy and then when I tune around a call people, I am always getting beat out and have to stand my turn in line. DXers are loud!
Fun contest. Thanks to everyone around the world who spent their weekend chasing W/VE stations. You make the contest fun.
Recording
Click here to listen to audio recordings of the full operation.
Station
K3 + AL-1200 K3 + AL-1500 Writelog + MK2R+ 160: Shunt fed tower, elevated 1/4-wave GP 80: 4 square, dipole @ 80' 40: 40-2CD @ 110' 20: 205CA @ 100'/50' 15: 155CA @ 66'/33' 10: 6-ele @ 90' South: TH7DXX @ 40'
By Continent
160M 80M 40M 20M 15M 10M Total % EU 237 611 983 1550 108 0 3489 84.8 SA 6 18 24 47 37 10 142 3.4 AF 6 10 15 16 8 0 55 1.3 AS 1 10 19 152 3 0 185 4.5 NA 25 36 41 51 34 8 195 4.7 OC 2 5 24 14 4 0 49 1.2
Breakdown
QSO/DX by hour and band Hour 160M 80M 40M 20M 15M 10M Total Cumulative Off 0000Z --+-- 91/31 60/31 1/1 --+-- --+-- 152/63 152/63 0100Z - 80/7 46/15 - - - 126/22 278/85 0200Z 74/28 38/18 - - - - 112/46 390/131 0300Z 43/17 19/4 54/3 - - - 116/24 506/155 0400Z - 14/4 93/14 - - - 107/18 613/173 0500Z 50/12 62/7 2/2 - - - 114/21 727/194 0600Z 17/5 72/4 23/8 - - - 112/17 839/211 0700Z 6/2 14/3 114/8 - - - 134/13 973/224 0800Z --+-- 2/0 18/2 --+-- --+-- --+-- 20/2 993/226 45 0900Z - - - - - - 0/0 993/226 60 1000Z - - - - - - 0/0 993/226 60 1100Z - 2/1 - 121/33 - - 123/34 1116/260 24 1200Z - - - 212/11 - - 212/11 1328/271 1300Z - - - 196/5 11/9 - 207/14 1535/285 1400Z - - - 141/6 36/19 - 177/25 1712/310 1500Z - - - 70/25 34/9 - 104/34 1816/344 1600Z --+-- --+-- --+-- 103/9 6/2 --+-- 109/11 1925/355 1700Z - - - 63/4 4/2 - 67/6 1992/361 20 1800Z - - - 78/4 8/4 - 86/8 2078/369 1900Z - - 8/1 35/4 22/12 - 65/17 2143/386 2000Z - - 113/2 4/0 2/0 - 119/2 2262/388 2100Z - - 51/0 43/3 4/3 - 98/6 2360/394 2200Z - - 10/9 59/1 - - 69/10 2429/404 2300Z - 6/0 74/1 25/1 - - 105/2 2534/406 0000Z --+-- 62/1 25/0 --+-- --+-- --+-- 87/1 2621/407 0100Z 6/1 6/1 1/1 - - - 13/3 2634/410 50 0200Z - - - - - - 0/0 2634/410 60 0300Z - - - - - - 0/0 2634/410 60 0400Z 4/0 75/3 8/1 - - - 87/4 2721/414 20 0500Z 66/3 28/0 - - - - 94/3 2815/417 0600Z 7/0 69/2 14/0 - - - 90/2 2905/419 0700Z - 4/0 101/1 - - - 105/1 3010/420 0800Z --+-- 2/0 101/0 --+-- --+-- --+-- 103/0 3113/420 0900Z - 1/1 18/1 - - - 19/2 3132/422 45 1000Z - - 2/1 9/0 - - 11/1 3143/423 60 1100Z - - 3/0 52/1 - - 55/1 3198/424 28 1200Z - - - 125/1 1/1 - 126/2 3324/426 1300Z - - - 136/2 1/0 - 137/2 3461/428 1400Z - - - 101/0 26/6 - 127/6 3588/434 1500Z - - - 67/1 15/2 2/2 84/5 3672/439 1600Z --+-- --+-- --+-- 73/1 3/1 4/4 80/6 3752/445 1700Z - - - 59/0 4/0 6/5 69/5 3821/450 5 1800Z - - - 1/0 - 5/4 6/4 3827/454 48 1900Z - - 20/0 12/1 10/2 1/0 43/3 3870/457 2000Z - - 11/0 9/0 7/2 - 27/2 3897/459 15 2100Z - - 53/0 11/1 - - 64/1 3961/460 5 2200Z - - 66/2 18/0 - - 84/2 4045/462 2300Z 4/0 43/2 17/0 7/0 - - 71/2 4116/464 Totals: 277/68 690/89 1106/103 1831/115 194/74 18/15
Most worked countries
160M 80M 40M 20M 15M 10M Total DL 32 98 165 264 19 578 I 9 32 90 131 8 270 UA 15 43 41 151 1 251 G 7 28 59 99 10 203 UR 14 37 50 81 - 182 SP 12 37 58 63 1 171 OK 16 35 46 67 2 166 F 4 26 43 63 7 143 EA 9 18 49 54 8 138 HA 10 24 45 49 6 134 PA 8 14 38 68 3 131 SM 13 23 25 47 1 109 JA - 1 3 102 - 106 S5 9 18 29 36 8 100
Best 60 minutes: 218 QSOs 15-Feb-2020 11:28-12:28 UTC
Worked on 6 bands (thanks to 10m opening):
8P5A KP3DX P40L P44W PJ2T PJ4A TO4A V26M V47T VP2MSS VP5K
Worked on 5 bands: 71