Wow. These are the conditions that make us dream about sunspot maximums. No solar belches to mess things up. All bands were open. 10 meters was open well past dark.
Europeans on 40m over 2 hours after their sunrise. Beat the USA record from last year operating 8 fewer hours. Worked 51 stations on all 5 bands.
Activity was great as well. I never felt like there wasn’t someone new to work.
I was looking forward to the contest but didn’t think I had the mental fortitude to pull off a full-time effort. Over the previous three weekends, I had done all-Asia phone and WAE phone and then a week of travel. I had a great start, but at 0200z, I wasn’t feeling it, so I took a break to watch a movie. I came back on and then got hooked. I stayed up most of the night with just a short sleep break.
I started on 80m before sunrise and then moved up the bands. The activity was okay, but nothing great. Finally, I got to 15m—and wow—this is where everyone has been hanging out! Then 10 opened, so I had some great hours running on 2 bands.
Took a break to do some errands around town. Then worked some more guys. Then a break to take a walk (a great way to clear your head and make the contest fun again). Worked more guys. Stopped to cook dinner. Then worked more guys and finally took two short sleep breaks.
Sunday morning I went right to the high bands. More running on 2 bands. Not as crazy as Saturday, but the QSOs kept coming.
I was watching the scoreboard. My breaks saw K1LZ catch up and pass me on Saturday. Manu at K1LZ did a great job all weekend and destroyed the USA record I had set last year. Congrats to him!
I was low on multipliers on Sunday so tried to do more tuning around. Missed some easy ones. Such as New Hampshire on 80 and Connecticut on 10m. Only worked a few stations from Georgia. Only one station from NM and one from WV. Nothing from WY.
The most interesting DX was working YB stations on 15 and 10 meters at the same time in the late morning. It was the middle of the night for them.
Everything in the station worked great. Even with the windows open the shack was extra warm from all the RTTY action on 2 radios.
The operating proficiency of the RTTY ops continues to improve. Guys were sending their calls less often and the exchanges were very short. That helped make the high rates possible.
Thanks for all the QSOs. This is probably the last CQ WW RTTY for me from this location. I will be moving to Ohio next year.
We had a very nice summer weekend outside, but I chose to chase WRTC qualifying points. You can do that when your wife is out of town.
The contest started OK on 40m. But, when I started making QSOs on the second radio, I was getting reports about a rough note or not good tone. I listened on a remote SDR and could hear a bit of roughness on the signal. It was not there without the amplifier. I swapped in my backup amp (Alpha 76-CA) and there were no more complaints about the signal.
Good conditions on all bands except 10m where only the biggest guns could be worked on scatter.
I operated the first 12 hours without a break. Then things slowed down as the sun came up and only 15m was open.
Took short sleep breaks the second night. I knew there would be few new mults, but also not much activity on the low bands.
I think this contest is too long for the amount of activity. This was the most I have ever operated WAE CW. Much more fun when you only do the 20-24 good hours.
Excellent work by many Eu to copy the QTCs without repeats. Thanks for taking my QTCs!
I think I had more QTCs than QSOs because WriteLog was sending the dupe QSOs in the QTCs.
I wasn’t really excited to do this contest, but it is a major for WRTC Qualifying so I went after it. Did not have a plan or strategy. Spent most of the contest trying to figure out what to do.
It did remind me why I have been doing more assisted operations lately. It is hard to find multipliers on your own – especially when covering 6 bands on both modes! I felt like I was blind all weekend. There are many big scores reported on 3830 that I never heard or only heard once.
15m was the hot band all weekend. Signals from Europe were so loud at the start that I tried to get a run going on SSB. It did not last long and then I couldn’t get anything to happen. CW was always better for being able to make rate.
Enjoyed my first successful run with 2BSIQ on Sat afternoon. I had two hours on 15 and 20 CW. One or two answers on each band made it easier than usual. Big help to the score!
I hit the wall around 0700z. Was hungry, tired, and a bit worn out from doing so much SO2R. Took an 18 minute break to eat and recover. Then it was a push to the end.
I knew from the scoreboard there were lots of mults out there, but I just couldn’t find them. Some luck on Sunday morning helped build up the total.
Some sporadic E on 10m Saturday midday. Worked EF4HQ, GR2HQ and IP4M. It was better during the last hour of the contest, but not many people were there – not even the HQ stations.
Ended with a good run on 15m at the end. Went to SSB for the last 15 minutes and it paid off with a quick 60 QSOs.
The big hassle for the weekend was computer related. Something is causing the USB port that talks to the microHAM MK2R+ to lock up. When I lose that, I lose connection to the radios and computer sending. The lockup is so deep that it requires a complete power down of the computer and then a restart to restore operation. This takes about 3 minutes to do. The lockup always seems to happen when I am running (of course) so I try to log on paper and send by hand while guiding the computer through the restart. Can’t tell if it is RF related or component failure. No pattern to when it happens. But, always at an inconvenient time.
Congratulations to N6MJ at ND7K. He got his usual great start and I couldn’t catch up. AA4NC and N2NT also provided much competition and motivation on the online scoreboard.
I need a bigger air conditioner in the shack. At least in the winter contests, I can open the window. That was not going to work this weekend!
I have to thank WRTC qualifying for this contest effort. The weather outside was fantastic and I decided to spend the weekend inside chasing prefixes. Luckily my family understands the obsession.
The contest felt like it started slow. Couldn’t get an answer to a CQ for 5 minutes. Even so, it ended up as my best hour of the contest. I was ahead of 8P5A for a while. 🙂
It was a weekend of one radio CQing and the second radio always tuning. Never really had two bands open enough to try 2BSIQ. It was old-fashioned SO2R.
Kept expecting a solar storm of some kind. Only took one hour of off-time in the first 24 hours. Conditions were good, but not great. 10m never really opened the first day. Sat evening did have a good opening to JA on 15m. The JAs saved me. I was 100 prefixes behind ND7K at one point. The JA opening produced a lot of prefixes to help close the gap.
Second 24 hours was more interesting. Had to find times to burn 11 hours off. Conditions just kept getting better. 80m sounded like a winter evening with no QRN and very loud signals from Europe. 20m and 40m were open, but had worked most stations so rates were lower. Felt like activity was down. I.e., not many stations with small QSO numbers.
Slept 4 hours Sunday morning.
Was about to take another hour off Sunday morning when I tuned across 10m and heard S50C about 20 over 9. Called CQ and had a good hour.
Decided on a strategy of taking an hour or so off and then getting on for an hour. Gave me time to take a walk during one off time. Eat during another. And a shower. Ran out of time with 90 minutes of the contest still to go.
Even better opening to Japan on 15m on Sunday afternoon. Had both Eu and JA calling at the same time.
Highlight of the weekend was having the serious USA single ops on the Contestonlinescoreboard.com site. I was neck and neck with N6MJ at ND7K the whole weekend. Fantastic motivation. I could not match Dan for QSOs, but tried to hang in on multipliers. I realized I had a QSO point advantage when my score was higher even when he had 400 more QSOs and 30 more mults. Nice to be close enough to Europe to get them on the low bands. Also fun to watch the N2IC and K5GN battle for top W5.
The QSB was brutal. Stations would send 599 loud and then disappear by the last digit of the serial number. The polar flutter on JA stations would eliminate the dit from a letter. This happened many times. Thanks to SCP or would not have known I had the call wrong.
Serial numbers were a real frustration on Sunday. Whether it was having to ask for repeats or giving them. It seemed like the bigger the number got, the harder it was for people to copy. It became a joy to send the number and have it accepted on the first try.
Only one equipment failure. The SO2R controller started randomly switching split headphones back to combined. Then it would not switch back until the transmitting radio stopped. Very frustrating when about to copy a serial number. The problem started Sat evening and then mysteriously stopped on Sunday early. Then came back for awhile Sunday afternoon. Not sure how to duplicate this, but had never seen it happen before.
This was a personal best for me in WPX CW. Just a bit short of the USA record set by WA1Z a few years ago.
Thanks to everyone that got on for the contest and produced so many interesting prefixes! You don’t work calls like AO275JZ or DM5041MK every day.
ARRL DX Contest, SSB - 2024
Call: K5ZD
Operator(s): K5ZD
Station: K5ZD
Class: SOUAB HP
QTH: MA
Operating Time (hrs): 40.8
OpMode: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
160: 64 40
80: 231 70
40: 446 86
20: 1185 115
15: 1140 113
10: 1493 121
-------------------
Total: 4559 545 Total Score = 7,453,965 <<- Possible new W/VE record
Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club
Comments
My third major contest effort in 4 weeks (WPX RTTY, ARRL CW, ARRL SSB). All fun with top-of-the-cycle conditions, but this one was probably the hardest.
K5ZD nearing the end of the ARRL DX SSB 2024 Contest
Decent start. Even got a run frequency in the mosh pit on 40 for a while. Low bands were not as good as CW, but good enough. 160 was way down from the weekend before.
I was watching the scoreboard and seeing N5DX and N3RD disappearing into the distance. N3RD was killing it for mults and also had the QSOs.
About 0600z I started to wonder if this was fun. 20m was open. But I could hear K5GN and K5TR running Europe that I could not hear. I decided that 4 hours of sleep might be more useful. It was not a great decision as the competition used that time to put another 300+ QSOs in their logs (mostly on 40). The sleep meant I was in chase mode the rest of the way, but with a better mental attitude.
I woke up to find 20m ready to go. Then quickly to 15 for an hour before making the jump to 10. I never really felt like I was in control Saturday morning.
Always seemed to searching for a good run frequency. Finally ended up above 28.8 and got to have some enjoyable rate.
15m stayed open so late that I didn’t get much time on 20 Sat afternoon.
Managed to wedge in on 40m and ran some more stations. Not fun, but the only way to get some of the multipliers. Then went back up to 10m to find it open to JA and South America. No luck with CQs, but plenty of spots to chase.
That got me to the 24-hour point. The score was good, but I was way behind N3RD. Every year I get to this point and wish these contests were only 24 hours… Took a food break and got back on the radio.
The 0100z hour had a great opening to JA. Even got some to answer my CQs! That was fun.
Decided I should take a short nap while the Europeans were sleeping. Had trouble falling asleep, but no problem waking up when the alarm went off. Jumped around the bands chasing spots and working on the 160 multiplier. Self-spotting definitely helped get attention on 80 and 160.
I had an incredible run on 20m during the 0700z hour. Imagine being on 20m with a clear frequency, no splatter at all, and just having one or two loud Europeans at a time answer CQs. It was a dream. Even so, I knew I need another 90 minute nap so walked away from a pretty good rate (although I think it was slowing down).
I saw N3RD had stopped increasing on the scoreboard around 06z. So all those 20m QSOs enabled me to catch up. 20m was still good when I woke up so I managed to pull at 200 QSO lead. Now it was time for me to be chased. N5DX was 800 QSOs ahead so I made it a goal to not let him get to 1000 ahead. Yeah, that is a weird goal, but whatever works.
The morning was OK. Bands weren’t bad (lots of Russians in the log), but not as great as they were the day before. There is a finite amount of DX activity so you run out of people to work. Even worse when everyone goes to 10m. I felt for the single band guys on 20 and 15. They had no one to work.
Tried to run as much as I could. 20m is best around 1700z while most people are still on 10 and 15m. It was just us an Europe. And some surprise callers from new multipliers.
After a short run on 40m during the 22z hour I was left with nothing to do but chase spots in the last hour.
Other thoughts…
The weather on Friday was great. I played my first golf of the season. The weather on Saturday was rain. All the line noise disappeared. Sunday was warm and windy so line noise was back. And I kept wishing I could go play golf.
Having so many bands open does ease some of the crowding. It was still very hard to find a frequency on 20 and 15, but possible.
Being south was an advantage. You could see it in the range of signal strengths from Europe. Northern Germany was weak and the HB/I stations were very loud.
Many package pileups were won by stations in the middle and south. None of this is a bad thing, just interesting to see how propagation varies year to year and when a disturbance happens. It is disappointing that ARRL permits self-spotting, but I did it and it does help at times.
Congrats to the UK contesters and their new 1000 watt limit. And those new 2×1 calls from Italy were interesting. You never knew who was hiding behind them.
The scoreboard is awesome. Had a blast chasing N3RD and N5DX, watching K1RX coming up, and the incredible score from N6MJ at ND7K. I needed the bands to break on Sunday morning in order to catch him.
Thanks to everyone around the world who chased W/VE stations all weekend. It certainly makes it more fun for us.
ARRL DX Contest, CW - 2024
Call: K5ZD
Operator(s): K5ZD
Station: K5ZD
Class: SOAB HP
QTH: MA
Operating Time (hrs): 45.5
OpMode: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
160: 172 50
80: 442 68
40: 1240 80
20: 1526 94
15: 1369 102
10: 1269 90
-------------------
Total: 6018 484 Total Score = 8,736,684
Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club
Comments
K5ZD near the end of ARRL DX CW 2024.
What a contest. What fantastic conditions. Especially over the pole. So many Russians!
We used to count the number of hours over 100 as a measure of contest success. This time I only had one hour under 100 in the first 24. Wow!
I turned on the scoreboard about 3 hours in feeling like I had a good start. Only to find N5DX and WA1Z already way ahead of me. A trend that would only continue. Even during 3 consecutive hours on Satruday morning with over 200 QSOs per hour N5DX just kept pulling away. WA1Z disappeared sometime on Saturday. That left me competing with N6MJ at ND7K. What? A W7 is keeping up with W1 in a DX contest?! Conditions must really be good.
I must have a hardware problem in my computer. It crashed around 17z the first morning. The MK2R+ software locks up hard and the only solution is to turn off the computer and restart. It happened again on Sunday at about the same time and I almost quit, but had too much invested in the contest at that point to give up.
160 was good the first night, but even better the second with no noise at all. I worked a number of 100W Europeans and even a few QRP.
The first night it seemed like 20 never closed. Loud Russians and then loud Europeans, with Japan mixed in the whole time. I missed a lot of 40m time because 20 was so good. The second night had the 20m opening, but not as good. And 40 was great at Eu sunrise so was able to get caught up.
The high bands were awesome on the first day. Just great the second. There was a period late morning on Sunday where I just couldn’t seem to get anything going. All while watching N5DX just keep pulling away.
Conditions to Asia the last 2 hours of the contest were great. I was even able to call CQ on 15 and get responses. A big help in my last-hour push to get to 6000 QSOs (far and away my personal best in a DX contest).
Mults were a challenge. It was hard to find time to S&P, and even when you did it was just stations sending a power and then dit dit. Callsigns seem to be optional in today’s DX cluster-powered contesting world. I have done assisted so much that I have forgotten the discipline of having to tune while running.
Lots of 6 band QSOs tell the story about how good all of the bands were.
Did not get out of the chair except for more than a few minutes in the first 26 hours. Then took a break to eat, then a short nap, then another short nap. Most I have operated as a single op in a number of years.
Unable to do 2BSIQ. Tried it for about 15 minutes on Sunday morning and just couldn’t Keep up. So this was almost all old school SO2R.
I did record the contest and there were some great rate and SO2R experiences. Unfortunately, the computer crash on Saturday did not continue the recording when I restarted. So missed a lot of the contest. Very sad since this one might be worth listening to during the next sunspot low.
Thanks to all the DX that spent their weekend working USA stations. Now to get ready for SSB in 2 weeks!
I was not planning to make a real effort in this contest. I wanted to save my BIC time for next weekend in ARRL CW (a WRTC qualifying event). Since I blew up an amp in CQ WW RTTY last fall, I thought it might be good just to do low power. That would also keep me from operating too much.
Started the contest 15 minutes late. Was CQing on 40 while trying to work the other bands. It did not start out great but was having fun. Hard not to have fun when you combine contesting, DX, and some great sunspot numbers. 40 was great all evening. Even 80 had louEUEu signals. But, I couldn’t stay awake and decided sleep was more valuable.
Woke up before the alarm on Saturday morning so got on the air. I was messing around on 20m and when I went to 15m (well before sunrise) it was already hopping. Great rates doing 2 bands on Saturday morning.
The weather on Saturday was great outside. Hated to spend it on the radio. Ran some errands, then got back on. Ran some new hardline out to the tower, then got back on. Went for my daily walk, then got back on. Watched a movie, then got back on.
Sunday conditions seemed slightly less good and the rates were down. While activity was good, it wasn’t infinite. I took some more breaks to do stuff. Then ended early to set up for Super Bowl watching.
Never imagined the score could get over 5 million. Amazing how points start to accelerate as the mult total grows.
Low power was way more fun than I expected. Didn’t seem to have much trouble being heard (except for polar paths to Japan and UA9/0).
Did an experiment by turning off the AGC on the K3. Tough on the ears at times, but it sure improved the copying of stations. The combination of Writelog along with 2 Tone and MMTTY was a winner. Almost always one of the two decoders would be clean copy.
The level of operating proficiency was the best ever. Calling stations sent their call the right amount of times. The exchanges were snappy. People seemed to be copying the numbers well. Really added to the fun! Running on 2 bands is like a fast paced video game as you switch focus back and forth.
Thanks to everyone who handed out QSOs. Gotta enjoy these high sunspot years!
CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW - 2023
Call: K5ZD
Operator(s): K5ZD
Station: K5ZD
Class: SOAB HP
QTH: MA
Operating Time (hrs): 44
OpMode: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
------------------------------
160: 156 15 60
80: 526 24 99
40: 1148 31 120
20: 1089 38 130
15: 1099 37 133
10: 1053 34 129
------------------------------
Total: 5071 179 671 Total Score = 12,473,750
Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club
Comments
Nothing like a high solar flux to bring out the fun. The best part was that it didn’t mess up the low bands. I never expected 60 countries on 160.
Bought a used C31xr to replace the TH7 the week before the contest. Was installed last weekend with help from KW1X and AA1ON. A great addition to the station.
Some intermittent problem on 40m. Transmit was ok, but on receive it would drop 10-20db in signal levels at times. I had to transmit to restore receiving. Very annoying. Seemed to get worse as I transmitted more. Probably one of my homemade hardline connectors.
Replaced one of the encoders in my K3 during the week. It had broken during the V4 trip. When I tried to make my first QSO of the contest I hit the key and the power went out. Quickly tracked it down to a loose connection at the power supply (another thing that made the trip to V4 and back). So started the contest 2 minutes late.
Surprise band the first night was 160. It was very quiet here. Must have been quiet in Europe as I was having no trouble calling stations and having them come right back. Even got some answers to CQs. The second night I could still hear Eu well, but they couldn’t hear me as easily.
Meant to take a short 20-minute nap on Sat morning. Woke up wide awake an hour later. The alarm on the iPad showed it was going, but I didn’t hear any sound. (It was playing into my earbuds sitting across the room.)
Immediately jumped on the radio and found 20 already going. Oversleeping would have been a disaster.
Conditions on Sat were okay, just one band lower than expected. And by the time 15m winds down, everyone in EU has left 20 to go to the low bands.
Took another 2 hour nap Sunday morning. More of a proactive measure since I didn’t really feel that tired. One of the ‘benefits’ of old age is that I don’t seem to need sleep as much. When I woke up Sunday morning and sat down on 40m, could not believe how loud the JA signals were. Several were 20 over with very little flutter.
I pushed down to 20m early on Sunday to bring the totals up. Which worked out well and meant I was ready when 15 opened to Asia.
The opening to Japan/Asia on Sunday evening was the best I have ever heard from here. The JA signals on 20 were great. Then got really good on 15. Even worked a few on 10.
Some nasty pileups. A few people seemed to be over-aggressive in their calling. By that I mean I kept hearing the same guys be annoying. Also noticed a lot of times when a guy would call and then not hear the DX come back to them. And not just once. You need to be able to recognize your own call coming back through the noise.
Did work 4W8X on 5 bands. Amazed to hear them on 80. Even more amazed they could hear me.
Loved watching the scoreboard. I use the mode where it shows all single ops regardless of Assisted or not. My goal on Saturday afternoon was to catch up with the multiplier total of K1ZZ. And to not let N5DX get more than 1000 QSOs ahead of me. I think I only finished 975 behind.
I am going to have to learn this 2BSIQ thing. Especially with multiple bands so open at the same time. I did manage to put together one 2BSIQ period of about 40 minutes on Sat morning that showed the potential.
Great fun. Thanks to everyone who gets on for the best weekend of DXing in the year.
