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 K1ZZ and K5ZD

Hourly comparison between N2IC and K5ZD