2020 WW Digi DX Contest K5ZD
World Wide Digi DX Contest - 2020
Call: K5ZD
Operator(s): K5ZD
Station: K5ZD
Class: SOAB HP
QTH: W1
Operating Time (hrs): 16.2
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
160: 43 13
80: 136 28
40: 251 39
20: 386 56
15: 41 14
10: 0 0
Total: 857 150 Total Score = 262,350
Club: Yankee Clipper Contest ClubComments:
An interesting learning experience. I now know that the most important trait of a successful digi contester is patience! Whether it is waiting for 3 retries to complete a QSO or wishing you could change the protocol to work all 5 callers that were copied at one time — there is simply no way to make things go faster…
20m was almost too good. So much QRM it was hard to make QSOs at times and very hard to work the deep Asia paths. The Digi contest does a great thing by suggesting use of different channels to spread activity out. Might be better with 3 Khz rather than 2 Khz so you know which channel a station is actually using.
Band conditions on 15m were poor. Only South America and few (very few) e-skip QSOs. Never even listened on 10m.
40 was open to Europe even at 2pm here in Boston, but could not make a QSO until almost 4pm.
80m was busy, but not many Eu in the log. Same for 160. Got tired and slept 4 hours.
Best hours were early when running FT4 on 2 bands. In the end, FT8 was the more reliable and productive mode. Slower, but seemed to have less failures to complete contacts.
I decided to run power because I wanted to chase DX QSOs. It definitely helped make more contacts on the low bands and on 20m when it was crowded.
The combination of WriteLog and DigiRite was fantastic. Did the first 8.5 hours of the contest at full tilt. Was transmitting almost 100% of the time by alternating odd/even cycles on two bands. Good test of the two amplifiers.
Was fun chasing AA3B and LZ8E on the scoreboard.
Thanks to everyone for creating so much activity in just the second year of this contest. Some of the DX contacts were amazing. It was fun!
Station:
Station: K3 + AL-1200 K3 + AL-1500 Writelog/DigiRite + MK2R+ 160: Shunt fed tower, elevated 1/4-wave GP 80: 4 square, dipole @ 80' 40: 40-2CD @ 110' 20: 205CA @ 100'/50' 15: 155CA @ 66'/33' 10: 6-ele @ 90' South: TH7DXX @ 40'
Rates:
QSO/Mul by hour and band Hour 160M 80M 40M 20M 15M 10M Total Cumm Off 1200Z - - 39/9 39/11 - - 78/20 78/20 1300Z - - 37/0 48/7 - - 85/7 163/27 1400Z - - 13/1 33/7 1/1 - 47/9 210/36 1500Z - - - 35/11 17/5 - 52/16 262/52 1600Z --+-- --+-- --+-- 31/6 1/0 --+-- 32/6 294/58 1700Z - - - 32/1 10/3 - 42/4 336/62 1800Z - - - 39/1 5/2 - 44/3 380/65 1900Z - - 22/4 34/2 - - 56/6 436/71 2000Z - - 6/2 17/1 4/1 - 27/4 463/75 28 2100Z - - - - - - 0/0 463/75 60 2200Z - - 25/7 28/1 3/2 - 56/10 519/85 5 2300Z - - 28/1 30/4 - - 58/5 577/90 3 0000Z --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- 0/0 577/90 60 0100Z - 21/5 15/0 - - - 36/5 613/95 34 0200Z 23/10 33/13 2/0 - - - 58/23 671/118 0300Z 15/3 19/4 - 4/1 - - 38/8 709/126 0400Z - 30/4 26/7 - - - 56/11 765/137 0500Z 5/0 23/1 13/2 - - - 41/3 806/140 0600Z - 2/0 9/3 - - - 11/3 817/143 41 0700Z - - - - - - 0/0 817/143 60 0800Z --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- 0/0 817/143 60 0900Z - - - - - - 0/0 817/143 60 1000Z - - 1/1 - - - 1/1 818/144 59 1100Z - 8/1 15/2 16/3 - - 39/6 857/150 Total: 43/13 136/28 251/39 386/56 41/14 0/0