2023 CQ WW RTTY Contest K5ZD
CQ Worldwide DX Contest, RTTY - 2023 Call: K5ZD Operator(s): K5ZD Station: K5ZD Class: SOAB HP Operating Time (hrs): 40.5 OpMode: SO2R Summary: Band QSOs State/Prov DX Zones ------------------------------------ 80: 316 42 41 12 40: 663 50 62 18 20: 900 49 73 26 15: 1102 45 84 29 10: 513 40 72 23 ------------------------------------ Total: 3494 226 332 108 Total Score = 5,545,782 Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club
Comments
This was a casual effort that turned serious. Didn’t do the normal sleep and food prep for a big effort. Was looking forward to the contest, but didn’t expect to spend full-time. Conditions on Friday night and Saturday were great. Lots of good openings and rates. Only slept 2 hours Friday night and 30 minute break for lunch. I would have been very happy if it ended after 24 hours.
Line at 24 hours: 2166 QSOs, 183 St, 95 Zn, 276 Cty for 2,958,914 points
The second 24 hours were a bit of a slog. Not helped when one of my amplifiers failed about 1305z. The power output went from 1400W to 2W. After spending an hour operating with one radio and thinking about quitting, I decided to pull a spare amp out of the closet and keep going. I was back in full SO2R mode by 1500z.
Was entertaining to watch the race between K1LZ and AA3B on the online scoreboard. They really piled up the multipliers. At one point on Saturday, I was more than 160 mults behind AA3B. I made it my goal on Sunday to close the gap to less than 100. You would think available mults are somewhat fixed, and I should be able to find some that he found using the cluster. But, no matter what I did, I never made it to under 100 mults behind. It was good motivation to keep me tuning the bands. Running on two bands very much limits the ability to tune around. You have to hope the mults call in.
The rebuilt TH7 now has an SWR problem on 10m. The amp didn’t seem to care and I was able to work stations to the south.
Nice JA run on 15m Saturday evening. Almost all right at the noise level. It was interesting to see how the bands opened in the morning. 20m was open well before sunrise but didn’t last long after due to absorption. 15m was the daytime money band. 10m was good on Saturday morning, but not so much on Sunday.
Spent time checking which antenna was best. For 10m, it seemed like the high antenna at 100′ was always better than the low stack or all 3. On 15 and 20 the stack was always best.
Spent a lot of time chasing missing states. Thought I was going to miss RI on 20m, but found NC1CC with an hour to go. Was missing OR on 20m until N7DB called in during the last hour. Didn’t hear a MT station until late Sunday and then got K7QA on 2 bands. Only worked one station in DE. No contact with VT although I heard N1IBM work someone.
Always a fun contest. The RTTY crowd is very proficient these days. Except for those few guys who still insist on sending everything 3 times. The biggest impediment to rate is my ability to type. I would mess up a letter and the station I was working would repeat their call multiple times. My bad.
This is a new personal record for this contest.
Station
K3 + AL-1200
K3 + AL-1500/Alpha 76CA
80m: 4 square, dipole
40m: 2/2 @110’/70′
20m: 5/5 @100’/50′
15m: 5/5 @66’/33′
10m: 6/4/4 @100′,64′,32′
South: TH7DXX @40′
Rates
QSO/Zn+Dx+St by hour and band Hour 80M 40M 20M 15M 10M Total Cumm OffTime D1-0000Z --+-- 38/37 60/48 --+-- --+-- 98/85 98/85 D1-0100Z - 66/21 43/18 - - 109/39 207/124 D1-0200Z 24/24 21/7 3/0 21/27 - 69/58 276/182 D1-0300Z 51/20 65/16 - - - 116/36 392/218 D1-0400Z 48/16 65/9 - - - 113/25 505/243 D1-0500Z 15/5 63/1 9/3 - - 87/9 592/252 D1-0600Z - 18/4 66/12 - - 84/16 676/268 D1-0700Z - 3/0 14/0 - - 17/0 693/268 49 D1-0800Z --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- 0/0 693/268 60 D1-0900Z 3/2 11/4 29/1 - - 43/7 736/275 34 D1-1000Z 9/4 25/6 60/14 - - 94/24 830/299 D1-1100Z - - 40/6 105/34 - 145/40 975/339 D1-1200Z - - 4/2 88/10 80/31 172/43 1147/382 D1-1300Z - - - 63/6 81/10 144/16 1291/398 D1-1400Z - - - 59/7 86/10 145/17 1436/415 D1-1500Z - - - 56/7 40/18 96/25 1532/440 D1-1600Z --+-- --+-- 3/0 28/2 21/5 52/7 1584/447 D1-1700Z - - 39/5 49/9 - 88/14 1672/461 35 D1-1800Z - - - 48/12 36/14 84/26 1756/487 D1-1900Z - - - 52/7 29/11 81/18 1837/505 D1-2000Z - - - 39/8 27/10 66/18 1903/523 D1-2100Z - - 66/3 1/0 22/3 89/6 1992/529 D1-2200Z - - 34/5 42/4 6/2 82/11 2074/540 D1-2300Z - 26/3 18/4 44/7 - 88/14 2162/554 D2-0000Z --+-- 54/4 19/2 7/0 2/1 82/7 2244/561 D2-0100Z 6/0 33/4 19/4 - - 58/8 2302/569 D2-0200Z 51/11 38/6 - - - 89/17 2391/586 D2-0300Z 12/2 44/2 11/7 - - 67/11 2458/597 D2-0400Z 47/6 2/0 3/0 - - 52/6 2510/603 D2-0500Z 38/3 4/1 - - - 42/4 2552/607 26 D2-0600Z - - - - - 0/0 2552/607 60 D2-0700Z - - - - - 0/0 2552/607 60 D2-0800Z --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- 0/0 2552/607 60 D2-0900Z 5/0 1/0 - - - 6/0 2558/607 55 D2-1000Z 7/2 19/4 21/1 - - 47/7 2605/614 D2-1100Z - 20/0 48/0 24/0 - 92/0 2697/614 D2-1200Z - - 27/4 57/4 - 84/8 2781/622 D2-1300Z - - 1/0 39/4 7/3 47/7 2828/629 D2-1400Z - - 10/1 50/1 1/1 61/3 2889/632 D2-1500Z - - - 57/2 15/3 72/5 2961/637 D2-1600Z --+-- --+-- --+-- 49/1 29/2 78/3 3039/640 D2-1700Z - - 16/1 26/2 8/4 50/7 3089/647 D2-1800Z - - 44/0 47/2 - 91/2 3180/649 D2-1900Z - - 49/2 37/1 - 86/3 3266/652 D2-2000Z - - 37/0 8/1 17/7 62/8 3328/660 D2-2100Z - 6/0 57/0 - 4/0 67/0 3395/660 D2-2200Z - 25/0 15/3 - - 40/3 3435/663 D2-2300Z - 16/1 35/2 6/0 2/0 59/3 3494/666 Total: 316/95 663/130 900/1481102/158 513/135
Best 60 minutes: 182 starting at 23-Sep-2023 12:16
Worked on 5 bands (54)
9A1A 9A5Y AA3B AA5AU C37N CR3DX CR3W DA0BCC DA0RR DD5M DH0GHU DJ3NG DK9IP DL1RTL DL6JZ DL8TG DP6A DP6K DP7D DP9A DR3W EA4BAS ED7B EE4Y F8CRS G2U I4VEQ IQ3RK IQ4FC K1AR K1SFA K5RZA K9CT KI1G KW1X LN8W LZ5R LZ6K N0UR N6WM NP4Z P49X PI4CC PI4COM S50W S56A SN7Q SP50UUU TM3Z US8ICM UW1M W0LSD W6SX YO9HP
Worked on 4 bands (94)
Most worked entities
80M 40M 20M 15M 10M Total K 166 287 239 209 105 1006 DL 44 62 122 168 91 487 I 6 41 78 98 38 261 SP 5 26 31 52 12 126 EA 6 18 26 37 31 118 PA 8 11 34 40 13 106 G 3 16 26 46 12 103 F 8 11 23 23 18 83 VE 14 30 13 15 9 81 JA 1 30 35 66 OK 3 9 19 22 13 66 UR 3 10 14 25 9 61