2024 ARRL DX Contest CW K5ZD
ARRL DX Contest, CW - 2024 Call: K5ZD Operator(s): K5ZD Station: K5ZD Class: SOAB HP QTH: MA Operating Time (hrs): 45.5 OpMode: SO2R Summary: Band QSOs Mults ------------------- 160: 172 50 80: 442 68 40: 1240 80 20: 1526 94 15: 1369 102 10: 1269 90 ------------------- Total: 6018 484 Total Score = 8,736,684 Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club
Comments
What a contest. What fantastic conditions. Especially over the pole. So many Russians!
We used to count the number of hours over 100 as a measure of contest success. This time I only had one hour under 100 in the first 24. Wow!
I turned on the scoreboard about 3 hours in feeling like I had a good start. Only to find N5DX and WA1Z already way ahead of me. A trend that would only continue. Even during 3 consecutive hours on Satruday morning with over 200 QSOs per hour N5DX just kept pulling away. WA1Z disappeared sometime on Saturday. That left me competing with N6MJ at ND7K. What? A W7 is keeping up with W1 in a DX contest?! Conditions must really be good.
I must have a hardware problem in my computer. It crashed around 17z the first morning. The MK2R+ software locks up hard and the only solution is to turn off the computer and restart. It happened again on Sunday at about the same time and I almost quit, but had too much invested in the contest at that point to give up.
160 was good the first night, but even better the second with no noise at all. I worked a number of 100W Europeans and even a few QRP.
The first night it seemed like 20 never closed. Loud Russians and then loud Europeans, with Japan mixed in the whole time. I missed a lot of 40m time because 20 was so good. The second night had the 20m opening, but not as good. And 40 was great at Eu sunrise so was able to get caught up.
The high bands were awesome on the first day. Just great the second. There was a period late morning on Sunday where I just couldn’t seem to get anything going. All while watching N5DX just keep pulling away.
Conditions to Asia the last 2 hours of the contest were great. I was even able to call CQ on 15 and get responses. A big help in my last-hour push to get to 6000 QSOs (far and away my personal best in a DX contest).
Mults were a challenge. It was hard to find time to S&P, and even when you did it was just stations sending a power and then dit dit. Callsigns seem to be optional in today’s DX cluster-powered contesting world. I have done assisted so much that I have forgotten the discipline of having to tune while running.
Lots of 6 band QSOs tell the story about how good all of the bands were.
Did not get out of the chair except for more than a few minutes in the first 26 hours. Then took a break to eat, then a short nap, then another short nap. Most I have operated as a single op in a number of years.
Unable to do 2BSIQ. Tried it for about 15 minutes on Sunday morning and just couldn’t Keep up. So this was almost all old school SO2R.
I did record the contest and there were some great rate and SO2R experiences. Unfortunately, the computer crash on Saturday did not continue the recording when I restarted. So missed a lot of the contest. Very sad since this one might be worth listening to during the next sunspot low.
Thanks to all the DX that spent their weekend working USA stations. Now to get ready for SSB in 2 weeks!
Station
K3 + AL-1200
K3 + AL-1500
160m: 1/4-wave GP, shunt fed tower
80m: 4 square, dipole
40m: 2/2 @ 110’/70′
20m: 5/5 @ 100’/50′
15m: 5/5 @ 66’/33′
10m: 6/4/4 @ 100’/65’/30′
10-20m: C31xr @ 40′
Rates
QSO/DX by hour and band Hour 160M 80M 40M 20M 15M 10M Total Cumm Off 0000Z --+-- --+-- 129/30 40/27 2/2 --+-- 171/59 171/59 0100Z - 70/27 62/7 - 31/14 - 163/48 334/107 0200Z 18/11 71/8 25/3 - - - 114/22 448/129 0300Z 9/4 26/5 - 22/12 8/3 4/2 69/26 517/155 0400Z 27/10 6/1 - 73/8 - - 106/19 623/174 0500Z - 72/7 - 61/5 - - 133/12 756/186 0600Z - 5/1 14/4 145/11 - - 164/16 920/202 0700Z 5/4 - 140/5 12/1 - - 157/10 1077/212 0800Z 4/4 13/9 84/3 17/0 --+-- --+-- 118/16 1195/228 0900Z - - 3/3 187/5 - - 190/8 1385/236 1000Z - - 5/3 184/2 - - 189/5 1574/241 1100Z - 1/0 10/6 68/1 91/32 - 170/39 1744/280 1200Z - - - - 170/7 41/22 211/29 1955/309 1300Z - - - - 1/1 234/24 235/25 2190/334 1400Z - - - - 6/2 212/5 218/7 2408/341 1500Z - - - - 3/1 187/4 190/5 2598/346 1600Z --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- 54/2 104/3 158/5 2756/351 1700Z - - - - 157/8 14/3 171/11 2927/362 1800Z - - - - 139/1 17/8 156/9 3083/371 1900Z - - - 77/2 41/0 12/2 130/4 3213/375 2000Z - - - 121/1 9/3 9/2 139/6 3352/381 2100Z - - - 100/2 8/2 9/4 117/8 3469/389 2200Z - - 45/0 31/0 7/3 24/2 107/5 3576/394 2300Z - - 125/4 9/3 - 1/0 135/7 3711/401 0000Z --+-- --+-- 65/3 3/2 6/0 5/2 79/7 3790/408 0100Z - 36/1 34/2 - 9/0 - 79/3 3869/411 0200Z 24/9 1/0 - - - - 25/9 3894/420 39 0300Z 63/6 - 16/1 - - - 79/7 3973/427 0400Z 7/1 42/0 - 2/0 - - 51/1 4024/428 0500Z 7/0 57/2 - 1/0 - - 65/2 4089/430 38 0600Z 7/0 20/1 108/1 - - - 135/2 4224/432 0700Z - 6/2 124/0 - - - 130/2 4354/434 0800Z 1/1 3/2 114/1 --+-- --+-- --+-- 118/4 4472/438 0900Z - - 9/1 69/3 - - 78/4 4550/442 1000Z - - 2/1 40/0 - - 42/1 4592/443 52 1100Z - 1/1 - 66/1 99/1 - 166/3 4758/446 1200Z - - - - 126/3 51/0 177/3 4935/449 1300Z - - - - 6/2 165/2 171/4 5106/453 1400Z - - - - 33/0 131/4 164/4 5270/457 1500Z - - - - 70/5 26/0 96/5 5366/462 1600Z --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- 74/0 8/0 82/0 5448/462 1700Z - - - 11/1 81/1 4/0 96/2 5544/464 1800Z - - - 18/0 52/0 11/1 81/1 5625/465 1900Z - - - 91/3 6/0 - 97/3 5722/468 2000Z - - 9/0 59/2 10/4 - 78/6 5800/474 2100Z - - 87/1 13/0 - - 100/1 5900/475 2200Z - - 25/0 6/2 22/3 - 53/5 5953/480 2300Z - 12/1 5/1 - 48/2 - 65/4 6018/484 Total:172/50 442/68 1240/80 1526/94 1369/102 1269/90
Best 60 minutes: 240 starting at 17-Feb-2024 12:50
Worked on 6 bands (89):
4A7S 8P5A 9A1A 9A5Y CN3A CR2N CR3W DC4A DD2D DJ0MDR DJ1OJ DJ5AN DJ5MO DK5KK DL2NBU DL6ZBN DL9EE DM5EE DM7A EA5RS EF6T ES5OW EW5A F6KOP G4IIY G4IRN G4PVM G6T GM5X HA3DX HA5PP HA7UI HA8JV HB9AMO HB9ON HG5D HG6N HG7T IK3ORD IO0A IO4X KH6LC KP2M LN8W LY2XW LZ2XA M6W MM9I NP4Z OH5Z OK1GK OK5Z OK6Y OL3Z OL5Y OM7M OQ5M OR2F OT2A P49Y PJ2T RL3A RU1A S52NR S53M S57KM SC7DX SK3W SM0T SN7O SN7Q SP1D SP1NY SP2QG SP2R SP5UFK SP7AS SP8R TM6M TM7A TO4A UW1M UW5Y V3T VP5K YL2GD YL7X ZF1A ZF5T
Worked on 5 bands: 154
By continent
160M 80M 40M 20M 15M 10M Total %
EU 151 408 1152 1306 1153 1139 5309 88.2
NA 13 17 21 22 27 25 125 2.1
AF 3 4 7 10 6 8 38 0.6
SA 4 7 11 20 30 41 113 1.9
AS 0 2 38 155 138 48 381 6.3
OC 1 4 11 13 15 8 52 0.9
Most worked entities
160M 80M 40M 20M 15M 10M Total
DL 22 83 202 213 199 192 911
UA 4 20 66 122 110 114 436
I 5 21 105 120 85 91 427
SP 13 26 61 68 70 62 300
G 10 13 59 59 53 56 250
OK 9 27 53 55 49 51 244
F 5 13 62 59 47 48 234
PA 2 11 45 56 52 58 224
JA 1 28 84 76 21 210
UR 8 15 36 50 40 37 186
SM 7 16 39 40 36 44 182
HA 11 23 31 33 35 37 170
EA 3 10 42 46 39 28 168