2026 CQ WPX RTTY Contest K5ZD
CQ WPX RTTY Contest - 2026
Call: K5ZD
Class: SOAB HP
QTH: W8
Operating Time (hrs): 30
OpMode: 2BSIQ
Summary:
Band QSOs
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80: 246
40: 602
20: 591
15: 719
10: 273
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Total: 2431 Prefixes = 898 Total Score = 6,475,478
Club: North Coast Contesters
Comments
I always enjoy WPX, and the RTTY version is a great start to the Spring contest season. Everything worked, and my line noise was even low for much of the time. I decided not to use a 2×1 call and just be myself. 🙂
I was racing furiously at the start to figure out why the second radio would not transmit. It was a wrong setting in the WriteLog and MK2R+ combo. I had to do AFSK. If I did FSK, the PGXL would trip on ‘Early RF’ and no amount of delays would fix it.
Contest started OK. After 3 hours of watching the scoreboard and AA3B get way ahead, I decided the W8 record of 4.5 million by KI6DY last year would be my goal.
Conditions on Saturday were good. Even though I had a few runs on 10m, it was clearly not the band it has been in the past few years. That made 15m the money band all day. I was having so much fun, I didn’t really take much time off. Just enough to take a walk and enjoy the warmer temperatures.
Decided to sleep at 0100-0430z. When I sat down to listen, the bands were awful. Not many signals and lots of flutter. Even 80 sounded bad. I should have waited an hour before getting back on, but I couldn’t resist making some QSOs. After 0530z, the bands started to recover. I made myself stop just after 0700z so I would have some operating time for Sunday.
Conditions on Sunday morning were not good. 10m didn’t open to Europe except for a few scatter contacts with the big guys. 15m was open, but it was clear the Europeans were hearing each other very well, so lots of QRM and waiting for my turn. As darkness passed across Europe, it got better. 20m was open to Europe all day, so that helped.
I passed the record early Sunday afternoon, so the new goal was 5 million, and then 6. Overall, it was an entertaining weekend. That kept me in the chair and focused on making as many QSOs and multipliers as possible.
I had a bunch of off time to take near the end. Probably came back on too early and ran out of time with 20 minutes to go. The high bands did finally open to Japan, but I could only work the big guys.
I did RTTY contests for years with only one decoder. Now that I am using two, it is amazing how much one copies when the other gets nothing. Maybe I need to try a third one!
It is simply amazing how many prefixes there are!
Station
2 x Elecraft K3 + PGXL amplifier
WriteLog + MMTTY + 2Tone
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′
By Continent
80M 40M 20M 15M 10M Total %
NA 197 301 169 168 56 891 36.7
EU 46 278 369 485 162 1340 55.1
AF 2 8 5 10 3 28 1.2
SA 1 7 16 23 40 87 3.6
OC 0 4 6 3 5 18 0.7
AS 0 4 26 30 7 67 2.8
Rates
QSO/Pref by hour and band
Hour 80M 40M 20M 15M 10M Total Cumm Off
D1-0000Z --+-- 64/58 10/9 3/3 --+-- 77/70 77/70
D1-0100Z 17/12 61/48 - 14/14 2/2 94/76 171/146
D1-0200Z 54/19 37/27 - - - 91/46 262/192
D1-0300Z 12/6 37/25 2/2 - - 51/33 313/225 16
D1-0400Z 40/19 38/27 - - - 78/46 391/271
D1-0500Z 27/15 45/27 - - - 72/42 463/313
D1-0600Z 23/8 33/19 - - - 56/27 519/340
D1-0700Z 1/0 - - - - 1/0 520/340 59
D1-0800Z --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- 0/0 520/340 60
D1-0900Z - - - - - 0/0 520/340 60
D1-1000Z - - - - - 0/0 520/340 60
D1-1100Z - - - - - 0/0 520/340 60
D1-1200Z 10/5 11/5 49/29 38/22 - 108/61 628/401 3
D1-1300Z - - 27/11 86/47 10/3 123/61 751/462
D1-1400Z - - - 69/23 60/21 129/44 880/506
D1-1500Z - - - 77/32 68/15 145/47 1025/553
D1-1600Z --+-- --+-- --+-- 48/28 35/8 83/36 1108/589
D1-1700Z - - 8/1 60/17 16/4 84/22 1192/611
D1-1800Z - - 24/7 49/10 11/5 84/22 1276/633
D1-1900Z - - 71/10 22/8 - 93/18 1369/651
D1-2000Z - - 22/3 10/6 - 32/9 1401/660 40
D1-2100Z - - 24/8 13/4 - 37/12 1438/672 34
D1-2200Z - 2/1 25/9 33/14 9/2 69/26 1507/698
D1-2300Z - 57/12 24/6 - 11/1 92/19 1599/717
D2-0000Z --+-- 22/8 7/2 5/2 5/1 39/13 1638/730 25
D2-0100Z - - - - - 0/0 1638/730 60
D2-0200Z - - - - - 0/0 1638/730 60
D2-0300Z - - - - - 0/0 1638/730 60
D2-0400Z 14/3 16/2 - - - 30/5 1668/735 33
D2-0500Z 29/5 25/2 - - - 54/7 1722/742
D2-0600Z 9/1 49/10 - - - 58/11 1780/753
D2-0700Z 4/0 4/1 - - - 8/1 1788/754 53
D2-0800Z --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- 0/0 1788/754 60
D2-0900Z - - - - - 0/0 1788/754 60
D2-1000Z - - - - - 0/0 1788/754 60
D2-1100Z - - - - - 0/0 1788/754 60
D2-1200Z 5/3 14/2 27/10 - - 46/15 1834/769 27
D2-1300Z - 36/2 64/13 1/0 - 101/15 1935/784
D2-1400Z - - 41/12 14/5 1/1 56/18 1991/802
D2-1500Z - - 26/7 19/4 12/5 57/16 2048/818
D2-1600Z --+-- --+-- 39/7 47/10 --+-- 86/17 2134/835
D2-1700Z - - 8/1 33/3 10/3 51/7 2185/842
D2-1800Z - - 28/4 32/4 - 60/8 2245/850
D2-1900Z - - 13/4 2/0 14/2 29/6 2274/856 29
D2-2000Z - - - - - 0/0 2274/856 60
D2-2100Z - - 18/7 3/2 9/3 30/12 2304/868 35
D2-2200Z - 20/5 18/4 35/11 - 73/20 2377/888
D2-2300Z 1/1 31/4 16/3 6/2 - 54/10 2431/898 18
Totals: 246/97 602/285 591/169 719/271 273/76
Best 60 minutes: 150 beginning 14-Feb-2026 15:02
Worked on 5 bands:
9A1A AG4TT CR3W DM3W EI7M IO6T IQ3ME K9CT KC7V ND2T OM5ZW ON5GQ P49X S53R SN7Q TM3Z WV4P
Worked on 4 bands: 53
Most worked entities
80M 40M 20M 15M 10M Total
K 184 269 152 132 47 784
DL 11 51 75 122 36 295
I 6 38 48 59 24 175
SP 2 12 26 33 13 86
EA 2 18 18 27 7 72
G 13 20 29 7 69
VE 11 21 15 17 4 68
F 4 13 8 12 9 46