2026 ARRL DX Contest CW K5ZD
ARRL DX Contest, CW - 2026
Call: K5ZD
Operator(s): K5ZD
Class: SOAB HP
Operating Time (hrs): 42
OpMode: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
160: 80 37
80: 299 58
40: 882 86
20: 1305 100
15: 1341 100
10: 579 86
-------------------
Total: 4486 467 Total Score = 6,284,886
Club: North Coast Contesters
Comments
Do I have fun DXing (go assisted) or do I make things hard (go unassisted)? Both W8 single op records are high and would require considerable effort. Decided an hour before the contest to go old school and work without the cluster.
Conditions at the start only sounded fair on 10 and 15. 40 had incredible signals from Europe, so I started there. When the rate slowed, I went to 80 and found a very quiet band with no static. A few CQs to get a skimmer spot, and it was off to the races. As in WW CW, 160 meters to Europe was much better early with a small peak later right at European sunrise.
I had no powerline noise or electronic noise on any band for the first 36 hours! This made a huge difference on 80 and 160 as I was able to copy weak callers from Europe.
I was mopping up Europeans on 40m and thinking of going to sleep around 0700z when I decided to check 20m one last time. Wow! The band was wide open. One CQ produced an insane pileup. I had a great hour from 0719 to 0819 and
then it died. I went back to 40m and discovered an unbelievable opening to Japan. Never heard JA so loud, with minimal flutter, and so easy to work. With Europe still coming in, it made for a good hour. Worked JR2GRX on 80 around 0950z and decided if I was going to sleep, it had to be now. Set the alarm for 1130z (sunrise is at 12:20z).
Woke up before the alarm and discovered 20m was already wide open. Found a clear spot at 14005 and cranked out two great hours. Western Europe was very loud, but so were Russia and Asia. What a pleasure to have these conditions when the world was focused on working W/VE!
It was so busy and so good that I didn’t head to 15m until almost 1300z. Found a frequency and had an immediate pileup. Lots of Europeans were watching the cluster for any new station to appear. Makes for a wild first 20 minutes on any new band. I had 220 QSOs in the 13z hour, which included a band change to 10m.
I didn’t stay on 10m long because it just wasn’t as open as 15m. I placed my bet that 10m would be better the second day and went all in on 15m for Saturday. Had I known, I might have invested more time on 10 that first morning.
The bands just kept rolling as I followed the Europeans down to 20m for a few good hours. The first JAs on 15m were not loud, and I had to call them. I got no answers to CQs from Japan. I checked 10m and was surprised to find the JAs were much louder there than on 15m. Still couldn’t get any answers, but I was able to make some QSOs.
Went to 40m at my sunset and the band was wide open to Europe. I had already worked over 600 contacts on that band, so the rates were slow but steady. Kept finding more QSOs and mults as I worked my way around 40, 80, and 160. Decided sleep was a priority, so I took a short nap from 0340-0450z. Woke up to a good run on 80 and then 40. 160 did not sound as good as it had on Friday night. It is always amazing to me how late we can work Europeans on 40 meters after their sunrise. We did not have the 20m opening.
Slept from 0815z to 1100z. Worked JA, VK, 4U1UN, and FK on 80 before getting E2M on 40m LP. Arrived on 20m at 1130z and found signals, but it was still waking up for us. Good run started at 1138z, and that restored my faith that conditions would be good for the day. Signals from Europe were amazing, so I stayed on 20 until 13z. Two huge hours followed on 15m.
I was monitoring 10m, but it was not sounding good. Made the jump to 10m at 1506z. Very loud signals from southern Eu, and some scatter from parts north. Got exactly one hour of rate, and then it was back to tuning both 10 and 15.
The signals from Europe at 16-18z on 15 meters were simply unbelievable. Some of the loudest were almost pinning the s-meter on the K3. I already had more than 1100 QSOs on 15, so the rate was slow. No choice but to call lots of unanswered CQs.
I watched the scoreboard all weekend using the view that combines the single op and single op assisted scores. The assisted guys all had huge multiplier totals, but that info gave me some idea of what to strive for. The unassisted guys tended to have more QSOs because we were focused on rate. AA3B (assisted) had huge QSO and multiplier numbers. He got 600 QSOs ahead of me on day 1, and I could never cut into that lead. My target competition started as NA8V, but switched to Jon AA1K. Jon was ahead of me on QSOs, and we were close on mults. I took up the chase, and that motivation kept me head down and on the radio working hard Sunday afternoon. Without the scoreboard, I might have been less committed or even stopped operating. I thought we were possibly battling for the SOHP win. I knew K5GN was very active and doing well. I learned after the contest that he had a monster score and was far ahead. If he had been on the scoreboard, I am not sure I would have invested the same energy. Hate to admit that…
The contest was a grind to the end. It was in the 21st hour that I hot-switched a relay while transmitting and took out the ability to switch between the stack and the tribander on 20m. Definitely need to invest in some switching automation as it is just too hard to remember everything late in the contest. 40 was wide open from 22z on, but not many people were left to work.
Spent the last 20 minutes beaming Japan on 15m and was rewarded with a small run of very loud signals. A great way to end a very entertaining weekend!
The number of stations worked on 6 bands tells the story of just how good the conditions were. I had 45 six-banders and 85 more 5-banders.
Thanks to contesters around the world for taking the time to focus on working W/VE this weekend!
Station
2 x Elecraft K3 + PGXL amplifier
WriteLog + MMTTY + 2Tone
160m: Inverted vee at 70′
80m: Inverted vee @ 80′
40m: 2-el Moxon @ 90′, 2-ele 40-2CD (NE) at 40′
20m: 5-el/5-el @ 80’/50′
15m: 5-el/5-el @53’/28′
20-10m: C31xr @70′
Rates
QSO/DX by hour and band
Hour 160M 80M 40M 20M 15M 10M Total Cumm Off
0000Z --+-- --+-- 103/35 --+-- 31/11 3/2 137/48 137/48
0100Z - 66/24 37/6 - 7/4 4/2 114/36 251/84
0200Z 10/10 46/7 - 22/15 3/2 - 81/34 332/118
0300Z 30/14 22/3 2/0 10/4 - - 64/21 396/139
0400Z - 4/1 155/11 - - - 159/12 555/151
0500Z 7/5 11/3 81/3 - - - 99/11 654/162
0600Z 13/2 38/4 40/2 - - - 91/8 745/170
0700Z 1/1 18/7 7/4 110/25 - - 136/37 881/207
0800Z --+-- --+-- 93/11 26/3 --+-- --+-- 119/14 1000/221
0900Z 2/2 7/3 26/4 - - - 35/9 1035/230 8
1000Z - - - - - - 0/0 1035/230 60
1100Z - - - 100/10 - - 100/10 1135/240 27
1200Z - - - 174/7 12/12 - 186/19 1321/259
1300Z - - - - 142/20 78/22 220/42 1541/301
1400Z - - - - 8/3 139/16 147/19 1688/320
1500Z - - - - 200/7 - 200/7 1888/327
1600Z --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- 145/6 25/5 170/11 2058/338
1700Z - - - - 132/4 17/9 149/13 2207/351
1800Z - - - 97/3 33/3 7/1 137/7 2344/358
1900Z - - - 137/5 12/3 - 149/8 2493/366
2000Z - - - 94/2 9/3 10/2 113/7 2606/373
2100Z - - - 38/0 6/2 17/8 61/10 2667/383
2200Z - - - 10/2 40/1 32/3 82/6 2749/389
2300Z - - 88/1 5/2 - 27/1 120/4 2869/393
0000Z --+-- --+-- 38/1 --+-- 14/1 30/2 82/4 2951/397
0100Z - 17/0 17/3 16/6 5/1 - 55/10 3006/407
0200Z 1/0 7/0 - - 13/2 - 21/2 3027/409
0300Z 9/1 9/1 2/0 3/1 - - 23/3 3050/412 21
0400Z - 1/0 - - - - 1/0 3051/412 60
0500Z 1/0 45/1 - 38/2 - - 84/3 3135/415
0600Z 4/1 2/1 52/1 26/0 - - 84/3 3219/418
0700Z 2/1 - 63/2 - - - 65/3 3284/421
0800Z --+-- --+-- 12/0 --+-- --+-- --+-- 12/0 3296/421 49
0900Z - - - - - - 0/0 3296/421 60
1000Z - - - - - - 0/0 3296/421 60
1100Z - 5/3 3/2 47/3 - - 55/8 3351/429 12
1200Z - - - 112/2 12/1 - 124/3 3475/432
1300Z - - - - 174/3 2/1 176/4 3651/436
1400Z - - - - 150/2 14/1 164/3 3815/439
1500Z - - - - 19/0 126/5 145/5 3960/444
1600Z --+-- --+-- --+-- 60/2 43/1 8/0 111/3 4071/447
1700Z - - - 58/0 5/0 19/1 82/1 4153/448
1800Z - - - 16/0 23/1 2/0 41/1 4194/449
1900Z - - - 23/1 12/2 11/4 46/7 4240/456
2000Z - - - 57/1 6/4 3/0 66/5 4306/461
2100Z - - - 20/3 16/0 5/1 41/4 4347/465
2200Z - - 43/0 5/1 18/1 - 66/2 4413/467
2300Z - 1/0 20/0 1/0 51/0 - 73/0 4486/467
Totals: 80/37 299/58 882/86 1305/100 1341/100 579/86
Best 60 minutes: 224 starting 21-Feb-2026 12:58
Worked on 6 bands: 45
8P5A 9A1A 9A1P CR2N CR3DX CR3W DA1TT DD1A DD2D DK4WW DK8MM DL3DXX E7DX ED8X EI7M G3P G5W HD8R HG6N II2Q II9P IK1PMR IO4X KH6J KP2B OK7W OM7M OP5T OQ5M OT2A P3X P49Y PA3AAV PJ2T PJ4A PJ4K SP8R TI7W TM6M TO4A UW5Y V3T WP3A ZF1A ZF5T
Worked on 5 bands: 85
By Continent
160M 80M 40M 20M 15M 10M Total %
EU 56 264 780 1127 1072 391 3690 82.3
OC 1 7 13 21 19 17 78 1.7
AS 1 3 44 84 159 84 375 8.4
AF 3 5 14 17 18 7 64 1.4
SA 6 7 12 31 46 56 158 3.5
NA 13 13 19 25 27 24 121 2.7
Most worked entities:
160M 80M 40M 20M 15M 10M Total
DL 11 56 131 220 215 82 715
I 7 15 67 105 91 36 321
JA 2 32 45 133 76 288 <<--
UA 10 29 80 80 11 210
SP 2 21 36 58 58 21 196
OK 2 14 46 46 51 30 189
G 4 11 42 55 55 21 188
PA 2 11 32 64 47 24 180
EA 3 10 41 40 46 29 169
HA 2 18 38 39 39 17 153
F 4 15 27 24 23 11 104
S5 3 7 24 26 29 14 103