2021 ARRL DX Contest CW K5ZD
ARRL DX Contest, CW - 2021 Call: K5ZD Operator(s): K5ZD Station: K5ZD Class: SO Unlimited HP Operating Time (hrs): 40.0 Radios: SO2R Summary: Band QSOs Mults ------------------- 160: 241 54 80: 712 78 40: 985 96 20: 1880 103 15: 216 69 10: 41 21 ------------------- Total: 4075 421 Total Score = 5,146,725 Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club
Station
K3 + AL-1200
K3 + AL-1500
80m: 4 square, dipole
40m: 40-2CD @110′
20m: 205CA @100′
15m: 155ca @66′
10m: 6-ele @90′
TH7DXX @ 40′
WriteLog software, MK2R+ SO2R box
Comments:
It’s always good to be in W1 for a DX contest, but that was especially true for this one. With weak signals and QSB – it helps to be closer.
I started on 40 with the second radio on 20. Couldn’t break many pileups on 20. 40 had very loud signals from Southern Eu and very weak ones from Northern Eu. Rate was ok, but not great. The guys on the scoreboard were racing away. I discovered the issue when I moved the 20m radio to 80. The band was wide open with big signals!
160 was amazing the first night. Super quiet with very loud Eu signals.
40 just never got going at any time. On 40 and 20, if you lost your frequency you were not going to find another one.
20m was incredible Sat morning. When I got there the band scope was full. Found a quiet spot at 14002 and proceeded to work 1000 QSOs on that frequency before I finally moved.
Didn’t mean to operate so much. I took a 3 hour nap on Saturday morning. Looks like I gave up 150-200 QSOs by doing that, but I may have gotten most of them back with higher rates. I didn’t plan to be serious because I had just done 30 hours the previous weekend in the WPX RTTY contest. There really can be too much of a good thing!
Almost quit on Sat afternoon when AA3B was way ahead of me. Thanks to the pandemic I didn’t have anything else to do, so got back on the radio. As I caught up with Bud on the scoreboard I transitioned from casual to serious. KI1G wasn’t on the scoreboard, but I assumed he must be serious by the number of pileups he was in (and winning).
Did work 2 EU on 10m beaming toward Africa. EA5RS had a good signal on both 10 and 15 beaming skew path. Otherwise, I had a very frustrating time on 10. With spotlight propagation, I walked away from several multipliers because the pileups were too big and favoring some other part of the country. Sometimes I got lucky later and sometimes not.
Speaking of pileups… being assisted means you run into the same hyper-aggressive ops in every pileup. I had many cases where I experienced all of my main competitors getting through before me. This is mentally frustrating. Of course, I never notice the times I get through before them. 🙂
The bands were not as good on Sunday. This made it a real slog on 20m. The weak QRP signals were even weaker so it helped to have a clear frequency and some luck with the QSB. Of course, the band was great to Asia at the end. Go figure.
I spent most on Sunday afternoon just trying to see if I could make it to 4000 QSOs. This is where the change to being serious hurt. If I was just playing, I could have taken the afternoon off and gone outside.
Very happy I decided to use the cluster. Worked lots of fun DX that I would have never found while running and tuning. RBN rocks.
Best DX was working ZM4T on 160 and VK2CCC on 80. Also very happy to get a JA on 80 Sat morning.
I think I logged over 100 dupes. Way more than normal. In many cases, I suspect they had miscopied my call the first time. All part of the game.
Amazing how many western European contesters joined in the game. We appreciate their activity!
Thanks to all for the QSOs.
QSO/DX by hour and band
Hour 160M 80M 40M 20M 15M 10M Total Cumm Off 0000Z 2/2 43/19 74/27 6/6 --+-- --+-- 125/54 125/54 0100Z - 102/12 39/16 - - - 141/28 266/82 0200Z 7/4 62/10 51/5 - - - 120/19 386/101 0300Z 90/28 - 18/8 - - - 108/36 494/137 0400Z 30/4 87/2 11/3 - - - 128/9 622/146 0500Z 7/3 57/9 23/6 - - - 87/18 709/164 0600Z 21/3 51/2 27/6 - - - 99/11 808/175 0700Z 3/0 10/4 40/1 - - - 53/5 861/180 16 0800Z --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- 0/0 861/180 60 0900Z - - - - - - 0/0 861/180 60 1000Z - - - - - - 0/0 861/180 60 1100Z - 1/1 4/3 133/30 - - 138/34 999/214 10 1200Z - - - 190/9 3/3 - 193/12 1192/226 1300Z - - - 179/3 15/11 - 194/14 1386/240 1400Z - - - 175/3 6/3 - 181/6 1567/246 1500Z - - - 160/2 12/8 - 172/10 1739/256 1600Z --+-- --+-- --+-- 141/7 12/8 1/1 154/16 1893/272 1700Z - - - 122/1 22/10 3/3 147/14 2040/286 1800Z - - - 31/6 66/9 13/12 110/27 2150/313 1900Z - - - 24/1 5/2 14/4 43/7 2193/320 20 2000Z - - 103/0 11/3 2/0 - 116/3 2309/323 2100Z - - 140/1 2/1 9/6 - 151/8 2460/331 2200Z - - 80/2 23/8 - - 103/10 2563/341 2300Z - 44/4 36/4 10/5 3/0 - 93/13 2656/354 0000Z --+-- 45/1 10/1 1/1 --+-- --+-- 56/3 2712/357 25 0100Z 20/1 13/3 17/0 - - - 50/4 2762/361 0200Z 5/2 6/2 38/2 2/0 - - 51/6 2813/367 0300Z 14/0 - - - - - 14/0 2827/367 55 0400Z 16/3 14/3 43/2 - - - 73/8 2900/375 0500Z 10/2 66/0 4/2 - - - 80/4 2980/379 0600Z 4/1 68/1 5/2 - - - 77/4 3057/383 0700Z 11/1 26/1 36/1 - - - 73/3 3130/386 0800Z --+-- 4/1 30/1 --+-- --+-- --+-- 34/2 3164/388 40 0900Z - - - - - - 0/0 3164/388 60 1000Z - 2/1 - 1/1 - - 3/2 3167/390 53 1100Z - - 4/0 90/1 - - 94/1 3261/391 1200Z - - - 121/5 2/1 - 123/6 3384/397 1300Z - - - 99/0 6/2 - 105/2 3489/399 1400Z - - - 108/1 6/1 - 114/2 3603/401 1500Z - - - 73/0 4/0 - 77/0 3680/401 1600Z --+-- --+-- --+-- 70/0 5/0 2/1 77/1 3757/402 1700Z - - - 33/1 7/2 5/0 45/3 3802/405 1800Z - - - 15/1 3/0 3/0 21/1 3823/406 20 1900Z - - 15/0 15/2 6/1 - 36/3 3859/409 2000Z - - 27/0 11/2 7/0 - 45/2 3904/411 2100Z - - 51/0 6/0 14/2 - 71/2 3975/413 2200Z - 2/1 52/0 12/0 1/0 - 67/1 4042/414 2300Z 1/0 9/1 7/3 16/3 - - 33/7 4075/421 Day 1:160/40 457/63 646/82 1207/85 155/60 31/20 Day 2: 81/14 255/15 339/14 673/18 61/ 9 10/ 1 Total:241/54 712/78 985/96 1880/103 216/69 41/21
Worked on 6 bands:
CR6K EA5RS EA7X FM5BH HH2AA HI0LT KP4AA NP4DX NP4Z P44W PJ2T ZF1A ZF5T
Most worked countries:
160M 80M 40M 20M 15M 10M Total DL 39 107 122 271 9 548 I 7 52 112 163 14 348 G 19 46 54 125 10 254 F 11 41 57 85 12 206 OK 15 42 40 86 1 184 EA 5 25 52 74 18 2 176 UA 10 29 24 107 170 SP 12 35 27 83 1 158 PA 5 22 31 87 2 147 UR 9 29 31 71 140