2025 CQ WW Contest CW K5ZD
CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW - 2025
Call: K5ZD
Operator(s): K5ZD
Station: K5ZD
Class: SO(A)AB HP
QTH: W8
Operating Time (hrs): 41.5
OpMode: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
------------------------------
160: 48 13 31
80: 197 19 77
40: 1128 37 125
20: 845 39 139
15: 975 38 139
10: 856 32 122
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Total: 4049 179 633 Total Score = 9,392,191
Club: North Coast Contesters
Comments
When I moved to Ohio in May, the primary design goal for the station was to be “loud enough.” This contest showed that the goal was accomplished, even though it meant not being as loud as I used to be from New England. 🙂
The goal for the contest was to beat the W8 record for SOAB HP Assisted. I passed that with about 10 hours left to go in the contest — mission accomplished.
The contest started OK, but I had no idea which band to be on. I just kept trying things until something worked. 40 was the big surprise Friday night as the QSOs just kept coming. I went to 80, and all the European signals were just at my local noise level. I called a few, and they came right back to me. Wow!
Same thing on 160. Both nights it was easier to work Europe early than at their sunrise.
I knew better than to push up the bands in the morning. I stayed on 20 and then 15 because the rate was good. I listened to 10, and it took a long time to open. I knew from the prop forecast that Sunday would be better than Saturday, so I went all in on 15m on Saturday.
On Sunday morning, I could hear Europe on 10, but they couldn’t hear me.
It was like I was just outside the opening. It did eventually open, and not having so many QSOs on the band meant I had some nice rates.
Some cool QSOs were working 40m long path. Got XU7RRC, BY3GA, E2A, and some JAs. Also worked VK6T on 4 bands. Nice of RA0LQ to give us zone 34.
Worked 4U1UN on 6 bands!! Also VE2IM on 6 bands. Great ops by both.
I only used the cluster for multiplier chasing and to populate the band map. As things slowed down around 19z on Sunday, I went into “spot clicking”
mode. A great way to catch up on all the guys who were just CQing. Very frustrating at times, as I had to wait my turn for all the other assisted guys closer to the Atlantic.
The problem with calling people is that they can’t seem to copy my call on the first try. It goes, K… K5… K5 and GD, GB, ZZ, ZB, KH7D, KH8D, KI8D, KS8D, etc. Not fun when you are tired and frustrated!
It was exciting as the QSO total approached 4000. Never thought I would be able to make that many contacts from here!
Shout out to the PGXL amp that I purchased over the summer. It was so cool to change bands and not have to tune the amp. Definitely made me more willing to QSY for a marginal packet spot.
Everything in the station worked great all weekend. WW RTTY was a great proving ground as I blew up a K3 and was able to make it so that wouldn’t happen again.
Even with the disturbed conditions, it was a great contest. Can’t wait to do it again next year!
Station
Two K3, one PGXL
Microham MK2R+
WriteLog
C31xr @ 70′
40m Moxon @ 90′ / 40-2CD @ 65′
Hygain 205CA @80’/53′
Hygain 155CA @43’/25′
80m inv vee @ 78′
160m inv vee @ 68′
Stack spacings are close because of limited tower heights (80′, 70′).
Really missed not having a dedicated antenna pointed south. That will be fixed next year.
Rates
QSO/ZN+DX by hour and band
Hour 160M 80M 40M 20M 15M 10M Total Cumm Off
0000Z --+-- --+-- 73/39 31/33 11/4 --+-- 115/76 115/76
0100Z - 9/12 57/28 23/13 - - 89/53 204/129
0200Z 7/12 53/30 10/5 - 2/3 - 72/50 276/179
0300Z - 5/3 112/20 - - - 117/23 393/202
0400Z - 9/5 114/4 - - - 123/9 516/211
0500Z 6/5 20/16 40/17 1/2 - - 67/40 583/251
0600Z 13/9 12/6 53/9 - - - 78/24 661/275 9
0700Z 1/1 6/4 71/4 3/4 - - 81/13 742/288
0800Z 1/1 3/0 2/2 2/3 --+-- --+-- 8/6 750/294 40
0900Z - - - - - - 0/0 750/294 60
1000Z - - - - - - 0/0 750/294 60
1100Z 1/2 1/0 5/3 41/24 - - 48/29 798/323 20
1200Z - - 13/4 99/23 19/21 - 131/48 929/371
1300Z - - - 1/1 214/33 2/4 217/38 1146/409
1400Z - - - - 177/7 15/17 192/24 1338/433
1500Z - - - - 45/7 144/22 189/29 1527/462
1600Z --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- 86/18 51/27 137/45 1664/507
1700Z - - - - 83/2 35/26 118/28 1782/535
1800Z - - - 34/18 45/21 5/4 84/43 1866/578 7
1900Z - - - 126/1 17/11 3/2 146/14 2012/592
2000Z - - - 47/12 6/4 8/6 61/22 2073/614 20
2100Z - - - 9/7 11/5 28/6 48/18 2121/632
2200Z - - 14/11 3/4 16/8 9/7 42/30 2163/662
2300Z 7/8 5/5 34/3 3/4 7/6 2/0 58/26 2221/688
0000Z 2/1 11/5 7/1 3/3 4/1 --+-- 27/11 2248/699 14
0100Z 4/2 8/3 16/3 15/3 - - 43/11 2291/710
0200Z 1/0 4/1 53/1 3/0 - - 61/2 2352/712
0300Z 2/1 7/0 - - - - 9/1 2361/713 42
0400Z - 10/0 - - - - 10/0 2371/713 60
0500Z 1/1 12/2 80/1 - - - 93/4 2464/717
0600Z 1/0 9/1 87/1 1/1 - - 98/3 2562/720
0700Z 1/1 4/0 89/0 - - - 94/1 2656/721
0800Z --+-- 2/3 91/2 1/1 --+-- --+-- 94/6 2750/727
0900Z - - 1/0 - - - 1/0 2751/727 57
1000Z - 1/0 - - - - 1/0 2752/727 60
1100Z - - 6/1 37/3 7/2 - 50/6 2802/733
1200Z - - - 16/0 42/5 21/15 79/20 2881/753
1300Z - - - - 79/5 110/2 189/7 3070/760
1400Z - - - 1/2 8/8 169/4 178/14 3248/774
1500Z - - - 1/0 15/1 120/7 136/8 3384/782
1600Z --+-- --+-- --+-- 35/9 7/0 75/2 117/11 3501/793
1700Z - - - 118/3 3/1 5/1 126/5 3627/798
1800Z - - - 45/1 23/1 20/1 88/3 3715/801 7
1900Z - - - 58/0 8/0 10/0 76/0 3791/801
2000Z - - 4/0 42/1 16/1 8/0 70/2 3861/803
2100Z - - 20/0 7/0 9/0 15/0 51/0 3912/803
2200Z - - 63/3 8/0 8/1 - 79/4 3991/807
2300Z - 6/0 13/0 31/2 7/1 1/1 58/4 4049/811
Totals:48/44 197/96 1128/162 845/178 975/177 856/154
Best 60 minutes: 220 starting 29-Nov-2025 13:08
Worked on 6 bands (26):
4U1UN 5J1DX 8P5A 9A1A CR3A CR3W CR6K DF0HQ EI7M HQ9X KH6J LZ5R NP3Y OL3A P44W PJ2T TK0C TO7A V26K V47T VA2WA VE2IM VE7UF VP9I ZF1A ZF5T
Worked on 5 bands: 70
Most worked entities
160M 80M 40M 20M 15M 10M Total
DL 2 14 157 105 122 135 535
I 11 61 61 47 45 225
F 4 48 39 40 64 195
G 1 9 41 38 48 42 179
OK 1 7 48 32 34 28 150
EA 7 36 34 27 43 147
UA 4 54 16 60 12 146
VE 13 16 36 39 26 12 142
SP 4 44 26 38 25 137
PA 3 28 27 34 36 128
S5 2 9 36 19 18 20 104
HA 7 41 16 22 17 103
...
JA 14 15 36 5 70