2023 ARRL DX Contest CW K5ZD
ARRL DX Contest, CW - 2023 Call: K5ZD Operator(s): K5ZD Class: SOAB HP QTH: MA Operating Time (hrs): 36.2 OpMode: SO2R Summary: Band QSOs Mults ------------------- 160: 76 38 80: 402 57 40: 853 78 20: 1097 87 15: 1211 89 10: 1318 87 ------------------- Total: 4957 436 Total Score = 6,483,756 Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club
Conditions could not be better than this one. All the bands were hot!
Comments:
This contest did not take the normal path. After 8k+ QSOs in January for the N1W WRTC event, WPX RTTY last weekend, plus some business travel, I hit the wall at about 0300z the first night. Even though the conditions were terrific, I just couldn’t see pushing through. Went to sleep for 6 hours.
When I woke up I was more than 500 QSOs behind K1ZZ and even more behind N2IC on the scoreboard. But, I felt great and the rates Saturday morning were simply amazing with consecutive hours of 193, 218, 216, 199, 173.
The second wall hit about 2 pm so took some time off to eat. Got back on for a while and then decided I needed to get a walk in before dark. Returned after sunset to discover an incredible opening to Japan. Even had some BY stations call me! At the 24-hour mark I had as many JAs in the log than stations from Italy. Whoa.
Saturday evening I decided to try to catch up from missing Friday night. The low bands were excellent and very quiet. Could hear almost anything. The sunrise peak on 160 to Europe was great with 9A1A up to S9 for a while.
Was catching up to the leaders so only slept for 90 minutes and then straight on to 20m. Rates were not as crazy, but the band was open deep with JA and BY calling in over Europe on 20m. So many Russians!
It was fun watching the scoreboard and chasing. Decided to just power through to the end to see if I could catch the leaders. Seeing K1ZZ, N2IC and I switching places at the top on almost every update was exciting. Thought I had passed N2IC at the end for the win, but K5GN turned in a truly amazing score from Texas that was ahead of us all.
Only SO2R here. Tried to run on two bands when the rates slowed, but just can’t do it. It was an experiment that lasted 10 minutes at most.
The worst signals of the weekend award go to TM6M (some kind of wide sidecars on their signal especially on 20), SN3A (very wide on 40m), and many others from Europe with strong clicks (too many to remember and name).
Having all bands open spread out the activity. Was relatively easy to find a CQ frequency. At the same time, that plus the rates made it very difficult to find multipliers. You would tune by and just hear “599 KW” and then “TU.” Before the cluster and RBN stations had a reason to sign their call to generate pileups. No more.
Best DX was being called by VU stations on 40-10m. HS on 10-20. V85 called in on 20 and then heard me through a big pileup on 15. VR2CO called in. Also DU3T on two bands. Nice to have JAs calling me on 10 and 15. The JAs were even loud on 40.
All the antenna work over the summer paid off. The new 40m stack is significantly better to Europe than the other 40m beam. And the low stack on 10m made me feel like the king of the band.
We will likely never see conditions this good again across all of the bands in the same weekend. Too bad I didn’t make a recording of this one.
Thanks to contesters around the world for chasing us all weekend. Especially for the number of Russian and Ukraine stations that were on. Those guys really know CW!
Station:
K3 + AL-1200
K3 + AL-1500
160m: 1/4-wave GP, shunt fed tower
80m: 4 square, dipole
40m: 2-el @110′. 2/2 @ 110’/65′
20m: 5/5 @100’/50′
15m: 5/5 @66’/33′
10m: 6-el @100′, 4/4 @62’/32′
TH7DXX @40′ (south)
Rates
QSO/DX by hour and band HoHour 160M 80M 40M 20M 15M 10M Total Cumm Off 0000Z --+-- --+-- 64/26 53/26 23/14 5/3 145/69 145/69 0100Z - 73/24 77/7 - 3/1 2/2 155/34 300/103 0200Z 9/8 22/6 85/6 8/3 6/5 - 130/28 430/131 0300Z 8/8 - 26/4 66/11 - - 100/23 530/154 0400Z 3/3 - 3/0 - - - 6/3 536/157 56 0500Z - - - - - - 0/0 536/157 60 0600Z - - - - - - 0/0 536/157 60 0700Z - - - - - - 0/0 536/157 60 0800Z --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- 0/0 536/157 60 0900Z - - - - - - 0/0 536/157 60 1000Z 3/3 14/13 21/10 48/6 - - 86/32 622/189 12 1100Z - - - 146/18 47/24 - 193/42 815/231 1200Z - - - - 218/17 - 218/17 1033/248 1300Z - - - - 25/1 191/39 216/40 1249/288 1400Z - - - - 1/0 198/6 199/6 1448/294 1500Z - - - - 7/1 166/6 173/7 1621/301 1600Z --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- 88/4 63/6 151/10 1772/311 1700Z - - - - 151/6 12/2 163/8 1935/319 1800Z - - - 21/0 114/2 22/2 157/4 2092/323 1900Z - - - 58/3 4/0 - 62/3 2154/326 34 2000Z - - - 59/2 - - 59/2 2213/328 43 2100Z - - - 2/0 2/0 - 4/0 2217/328 54 2200Z - - - 18/2 38/2 5/2 61/6 2278/334 26 2300Z - - - - 39/3 54/1 93/4 2371/338 0000Z --+-- --+-- 70/1 18/6 3/2 4/2 95/11 2466/349 0100Z - 26/1 48/8 3/1 - - 77/10 2543/359 0200Z 8/6 20/4 - - - - 28/10 2571/369 36 0300Z 5/3 67/2 5/1 - - - 77/6 2648/375 18 0400Z 4/0 92/3 8/1 - - - 104/4 2752/379 0500Z 28/5 58/2 - - - - 86/7 2838/386 0600Z 7/1 23/1 115/1 - - - 145/3 2983/389 0700Z - - 121/6 2/0 - - 123/6 3106/395 0800Z --+-- 1/0 59/3 2/0 --+-- --+-- 62/3 3168/398 27 0900Z - - - - - - 0/0 3168/398 60 1000Z 1/1 1/1 - 34/0 - - 36/2 3204/400 43 1100Z - - 1/1 191/2 - - 192/3 3396/403 1200Z - - 1/0 24/2 141/1 - 166/3 3562/406 1300Z - - - - 27/0 154/6 181/6 3743/412 1400Z - - - - 4/0 161/1 165/1 3908/413 1500Z - - - - 18/0 132/2 150/2 4058/415 1600Z --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- 15/1 115/1 130/2 4188/417 1700Z - - - - 120/1 11/2 131/3 4319/420 1800Z - - - 61/0 65/0 12/2 138/2 4457/422 1900Z - - - 120/1 13/1 - 133/2 4590/424 2000Z - - - 109/2 7/3 - 116/5 4706/429 2100Z - - 28/1 49/0 1/0 11/2 89/3 4795/432 2200Z - - 93/1 5/2 1/0 - 99/3 4894/435 2300Z - 5/0 28/1 - 30/0 - 63/1 4957/436 Total: 76/38 402/57 853/78 1097/87 1211/89 1318/87
Best 60 minutes: 228 @ 18-Feb-2023 11:45z
Worked on 6 bands (43):
9A1A 9A3XV CR3W DD1A DD2D DQ2C DR4A E7DX ED1R F6FYA G5W G6XX HB9AMO HG5D HG6N II2S IK1PMR IQ8SN KP4AA LN8W LZ2RS NP4Z OL3Z OM0R OM4MW OR3A OZ5W P40N PJ2T PJ4A S53M SN7O SN7Q SP4Z SP8R SP9ATE T48K TI7W TM6M TO4A V3T VP5K ZF1A
(This alone tells you how great all bands were!)
Most worked entities:
160M 80M 40M 20M 15M 10M Total
DL 10 60 134 156 156 213 729
I 4 27 65 73 89 91 349
UA 18 36 70 97 108 329
SP 5 26 40 44 43 73 231
OK 3 31 49 46 49 50 228
PA 1 11 35 61 41 71 220
JA 1 16 48 97 53 215
G 3 12 41 38 44 48 186
F 4 19 48 36 30 46 183
EA 3 14 34 46 40 34 171
HA 2 17 34 35 39 43 170
SM 1 10 20 31 32 41 135
UR 15 18 26 35 40 134
OH 1 10 13 24 28 25 101
Hour-by-hour comparisons with K1ZZ and N2IC (from contestonlinescores.com)
Hourly comparison between N2IC and K5ZD