Final score after log checking applied:
Band QSOs QTCs Mul
80 m 109 29 128 Lost:
40 m 198 225 168 Lost:
20 m 222 663 124 Lost:
15 m 40 58 34 Lost:
10 m 0 0 0 Lost:
Total 569 975 454 ==> 700.976
The score reduction in percent is: -1.22%
ARRL Sweepstakes Contest, CW
Call: K5ZD
Operator(s): K5ZD
Class: Single Op HP
Operating Time (hrs): 19.8
Summary:
Band QSOs
---------------
160: 0
80: 275
40: 485
20: 355
15: 38
10: 0
---------------
Total: 1153 Sections 83 Total Score 191,398
Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club
Comments
My 43rd consecutive year with more than 1000 QSOs in SS CW!
After 8400 QSOs in WW SSB last weekend, it was hard to get motivated to do the slow rates of SSCW. Focused on continuing my streak – now 43 consecutive years with more than 1000 QSOs in SS CW!
Put the station back together on Friday afternoon. Some of it had been disassembled for the trip down to V4 for CQWW. Also discovered high SWR on the 80m 4-square. Turned out to be a broken wire at one of the feed points. Easily repaired.
Contest started OK, but it felt like activity was not as high as in past years. This really showed up when rates slowed late Sat evening.
Sunday was the usual grind with everyone on 20m. Would go 7 minutes with no answer and then get 3 in a row.
Still one of my favorite contests due to the need to actually copy info. Always a thrill to get all of the info from a weak station in one pass. Mixed with the agony of needing just one thing and the guy sending his whole exchange again, only to miss that one thing again…
Thanks to everyone who got on. Special thanks to KV0I for NE, N5NA for WTX, N7IV for ND, and VY1AAA for NWT.
Had to end early to pick my wife up at the airport. I didn’t mind missing the end… it was getting slow. 🙂
Call: V47T
Operator(s): K5ZD
Class: SOAB HP
Operating Time (hrs): 44
Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
160: 51 13 33
80: 525 17 67
40: 1930 28 100
20: 2501 27 99
15: 3156 27 104
10: 126 16 45
Total: 8389 128 448 Total Score 11,604,672
Club: None
Comments
Doing a competitive SOAB in CQWW SSB has been a dream of mine. Amazingly lucky to go from a seat request on the cq-contest reflector a few weeks ago to fulfilling that dream from V47T.
The original plan was to do MS with NP4Z, but Felipe ran into some work conflicts and offered me the chance to do a single op. N2NT and NP4Z had planned a trip to do station repairs. I felt like a rock star when they picked me up at the airport and helped get everything set up for the contest! It was lonely when they left for home on Wed. Gave me some time to enjoy the beach and drive around the island.
The station is on a hilltop at about 1000 feet ASL. It is a steep drop toward Europe down to the ocean about a mile away. Not bad to USA either. It requires an AWD vehicle to reach the station.
There a million stories and comments I could report but will have to wait for another day. Still in recovery mode.
Slept 3 hours Sun morning. Rates were getting slow and I knew I would need it to push through another day of QSO making on the high bands.
Was completely isolated in a concrete bunker for the weekend with a single window to see if it was daylight or dark. For 48+ hours I did not think about anything except where the next QSO was coming from.
A bit disappointed with the mults, but conditions just weren’t open very deep. So went with a run at all times strategy. Never heard zones 19, 23, 24, 29, or 34.
Hilltops on islands in the Caribbean rock.
Amazing all the activity that shows up on the bands during CQWW. Thank you all for making it the best radio weekend of the year. And again, thanks to N2NT and NP4Z for use of the station and V44KAI for local support.
View to Europe
Operating position
Tired op at end of contest
Some numbers…
QSOs by Continent/Band
160M 80M 40M 20M 15M 10M Total %
NA 130 404 1179 1665 1572 42 4992 59.5
SA 4 14 42 33 41 26 160 1.9
EU 15 96 647 740 1480 45 3023 36.0
AF 1 6 10 9 18 11 55 0.7
AS 0 2 27 48 30 2 109 1.3
OC 0 3 25 6 14 0 48 0.6
Casual effort. Back and shoulder injury made it hard to stay in chair for long stints.
Conditions were not the best. Thought 15m might open a few times, but it would just tease with a few QSOs and then be dead again. Was able to work some Europeans on 80, but it was hard. Signals sounded a bit hollow.
Amazing activity on 20m. I heard RTTY all the way up to 14152!
This is always one of the my favorite contests. Since I was in and out, I enjoyed watching the contestonlinescoreboard and trying to catch whoever was in front of me.
Hard to get much extra rate doing dual CQ when only one band is open at a time.
Call: K5ZD
Operator(s): K5ZD
Station: K5ZD
Class: Single Op HP
QTH: MA
Operating Time (hrs): 25
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs QTCs Mults
80: 204 40 156
40: 362 459 123
20: 752 910 94
15: 181 80 72
10: 4 0 8
Total: 1503 1489 453 Total Score = 1,355,376
Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club
Comments:
I turned 60 on Saturday of the contest. Enjoyed the good
conditions and working almost 1000 QSOs. Then it got noisy and the activity
went away. Too slow on Sunday!
Very strong CR6K on 10m Sat morning. Tried calling CQ but only one answer from EF5Y. Still, never expected to work EU on 10m.
This was my first true attempt at automated 2BSIQ (dual
CQ). WriteLog has great automation to
help, but sometimes the operator just couldn’t keep up. Sorry for those I didn’t work while trying to
unscramble the log.
Lots of QSB on signals.
A guy would call and be loud, then be weak when he sent his report. Had to ask for a lot of repeats. Even worse Sat evening on the low bands when
the QRN was higher.
Was fun to watch the scoreboard and chase N6MJ, KO7SS, and AA3B all weekend. Kept me in the chair much longer than I had intended.
I think this contest would be more fun on the receiving side of QTCs… The only challenge for the sender is carefully picking guys who are loud and can copy the code.
Thanks to my family for letting me spend a beautiful summer day playing radio. And thanks to N1PGA for helping me fix the 80m 4-square and 15m beam the days before the contest.
I had a flight to catch Sunday morning so I knew I would
miss the last hour of the contest. But,
wanted to see if I could collect some good WRTC qualifying points. Figured I would start and then have the
option to continue or quit depending on conditions.
Conditions were interesting. Fun to hear the loud Eu HQ stations come in at various times on E-skip on 10 and 15m.
Had dual CQ going for awhile on 15/20 and that really
helped the rates and fun factor. When EU got loud on 20 CW, I went to SSB and
had a great run. Really needed the
points as the first few hours were mostly 1 pointers from zone 8.
Don’t really have enough antenna to do well on 40m. And it was noisy so couldn’t try dual CQ.
Never heard a JA all weekend. Was running a lot so didn’t tune as much as I probably should have.
160m was interesting. Some guys could hear and some could not. I did have a small run which produced a number of multipliers.
Finally decided that sleep would be more beneficial than
grinding out the wee hours. From the
scoreboard, that may have cost me 200-300 QSOs.
Best motivation was chasing VA2WA on the scoreboard. Almost caught him a few times and then his multiplier would jump. I soon suspected he was probably using the cluster, but it was still fun to chase him and others. Great job by AA3B and W1KM on CW.
Some antenna issues that will need to be diagnosed. The top 15m beam would not turn so was stuck west all weekend. That left me trying to run guys with the low antenna at 33′. The 40m beam continues to be intermittent at the feed point.
Call: K5ZD Operator(s): K5ZD Class: SO Unlimited HP QTH: W1 Operating Time (hrs): 30 Radios: SO2R Band QSOs Mults 160: 239 71 80: 548 90 40: 911 110 20: 1291 116 15: 404 89 10: 3 2 Total: 3396 478 Total Score 4,869,864 Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club
Best low band conditions ever! Amazed to have 62 countries on 160 in just
the first night! No QRN. Must have been
quiet in Europe too because was able to call and have guys respond on the first
try.
Various antenna and equipment problems continue to
indicate the need for more station maintenance.
Couldn’t access the stack on 15m so did most of my work on the 5-ele at
33′. Alpha 76CA started making a burning
smell so my wife made me turn it off.
Switched in the backup AL-1200, but it had a relay problem so wouldn’t
always hear well after transmitting.
Missed some great hours on Sat afternoon while building
bedroom furniture for my daughter.
Heard 4 stations on 10m and managed to work 3 of them. It was stone cold dead.
Fun having the cluster spots so I could chase DX between running. Also nice to have the scoreboard going to keep up the motivation.
No excuses. Had a blast and more than exceeded my goals.
Thanks to everyone around the world who hunt for W/VE QSOs all weekend.
Class: Single Op HP QTH: W1 Operating Time (hrs): 11.7
Summary: Total: QSOs = 1045 State/Prov = 55 Countries = 57 Total Score = 490,672
Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club
Comments:
That was entertaining!
Only worked a few hours the first night. Band did not seem good for
working DX. When the USA rate slowed
down, I hit the sack.
Made a few QSOs at sunrise on Sat morning, but band still
did not sound good.
Got back on Sat night around 0015z and things sounded
much better. The big gun Europeans were
much louder. Had better than expected rate with some DX thrown in so kept operating. Ended up making 700 contacts over the next 8
hours.
Was watching the online scoreboard and that kept me
motivated to keep pushing. Especially as those 10 point QSOs accelerated the score.
Band was amazingly quiet both nights. Worked a lot of very very weak Europeans. Fun!
Never heard SD, NE, KH6 or KL7. Missed a number of VE provinces as well. OA4DX was loud, but CQed in my face. That was the best DX heard and missed. 4X2M
was the “best” DX worked.
Station:
Elecraft K3 + Alpha 76CA 1/4-wave elevated GP with 6 radials 90′ shunt fed tower with 32 radials
QSOs By Continent:
160 Total %
NA 783 783 74.9 SA 5 5 0.5 EU 249 249 23.8 AF 6 6 0.6 AS 2 2 0.2
Contesting has traditionally been a very lonely sport. You sit in your shack, make QSOs, and then find out how you did at the end. That requires a lot of self-motivation to keep going when conditions are poor.
Over the past few years, I have been watching the online scoreboard while operating. It gives me an idea of how I am doing compared to others. There have been several times where I have operated many more hours than I intended just because I was chasing the next score above me on the scoreboard. That is especially true when I am operating part time. I sit down, see who is ahead of me, and then try to catch and pass them. Fun little shot of excitement when the pass finally happens. Especially if the other guy passes you back!
The ARRL and CQ have confirmed that watching a scoreboard during the contest does not put you in the Assisted category. It is also a great way to keep a multi-op team motivated and engaged. Even the ops that go home to sleep can follow the progress of the team.
All you need to add your score to the scoreboard is a popular logging software and an Internet connection. One scoreboard I like to use is http://contestonlinescore.com (COSB), which is operated by Victor VA2WA.
All the details about how to set up your logger are available at https://contestonlinescore.com/blog/documents/ If you set up your logger to use the “score distributor server” then your score will be sent to other scoreboards in addition to COSB.
Once you have the logger broadcasting your score every 5 minutes or so, you focus on operating the contest. The logger and scoreboard will work silently in the background. I usually keep a small browser window open on the screen that is showing the scores for my operating category. [Hint: Click on the small mobile phone icon near the top of the COSB page and it will take you to a page optimized for mobile phones. That uses minimum screen space to show calls and scores.]
Give the scoreboard a try and see if you like it. Scoreboards are definitely more fun when more people are contributing.
CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW
Call: K5ZD
Operator(s): K5ZD
Class: SOAB HP
Class Overlay: Classic
QTH: W1
Operating Time (hrs): 25
Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
------------------------------
160: 114 14 49
80: 266 17 65
40: 722 29 96
20: 1485 31 118
15: 279 20 72
10: 1 1 1
------------------------------
Total: 2867 112 401 Total Score = 4,238,406
Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club
Comments
We had company for the holidays and the bed in the shack becomes a guest room. They left on Sat morning, but I knew I was going to miss most of the first night so decided to do the Classic overlay – one radio, no spotting.
Started on 20m casually DXing and working Asia. Then moved through each band once. Then I was kicked out.
Back on Saturday morning and wow! The rates on 20m were incredible. Had to finally take the leap and go to 15m. It wasn’t as good, but there were mults there.
Perfect conditions for being in W1. Usually only one band really open to Europe at a time and they were all beaming our way. That means great rates if you can get a frequency!
Must be a bit of WRTC fever still going on in Germany. I don’t recall ever working so many! They just kept calling in. Lots of Russian and Ukraine also.
Best DX was UP2L on 80m. Heard a zone 18 on 80 Friday night, but he CQed in my face. Did work RM9A (17) and RA9Y (18) on Saturday evening. Any QSO with Africa was exciting (and usually meant busting a big unruly pileup).
As always, it was a constant dilemma whether to run or tune for missing mults. I spent most of the time running.
K1TTT was the ONLY signal I heard on 10m all weekend! I don’t recall it ever being so dead in a WW. Thanks for the double mult!
No equipment failures this time. 40m beam is still intermittent on receive and the SWR on the south tribander is high (but it seems to work).
Knowing I needed to maximize my score within 24 hours, I tried not to operate too much the first day. I think I timed it out almost perfectly. The 40m run on Sun evening dried up about 10 mins after I hit the time limit. Spent the last hour just tuning around and enjoying all the cool DX that is in CQWW.
So for my Classic score, it will be something around 2810 QSOs, 110 Z, and
396 C for about 4.1M.
Was very fun to watch the scoreboard all weekend. Especially the battle between D41CV, Ti7W, and ZF1A. Those guys were making amazing rates. For me, it was helpful to have someone to chase when I came back to the shack after being away.
This contest really is the best in terms of activity and operating level. Thanks to everyone for getting on and creating so much fun.
