2025 ARRL DX Contest SSB K5ZD
ARRL DX Contest, SSB - 2025
Call: K5ZD
Operator(s): K5ZD
Station: K5ZD
Class: SOUAB HP
Operating Time (hrs): 35
OpMode: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
160: 59 40
80: 193 63
40: 349 83
20: 907 104
15: 1017 108
10: 1312 120
-------------------
Total: 3837 518 Total Score = 5,962,698
Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club
Comments
My first contest from this location was in ARRL DX Phone 1993. I had owned the house for 3 days and put a Hygain 18AVT all band vertical on the chain link fence. I went to Dayton in May later that year and returned to walk the property and decide where the antennas would go. Had two towers and a competitive station by CQ WW SSB in October. Have exceeded every contesting expectation I ever had in the 32 years since. It has been a good run. Nice to end on a weekend that had a little bit of everything.
Trying to win a contest is hard work. Enjoying one is fun. I used the cluster and decided to do whatever felt like fun all weekend. No pressure.
Started on 10m calling stations and then worked my way down the bands. 40m is always tough so just worked the big guys. Signals on 75m were fantastically loud. Felt like a sunspot low. Even 160 was quiet and produced some Europeans, including a short run in the 05z hour that produced many multipliers.
Things started to get quiet around 07z (2 am) so I decided on a sleep break. Back on at 10z (5 am) and 20m was just waking up. Always fun to hear the band come to life. Best was getting 14163 and was off to the races at 1025z. Made the jump to 15m at 1123z and the rate exploded! We are so lucky in New England to get first dibs on the bands.
I wasn’t sure about 10m, but there were lots of signals, so I threw out a CQ at 1214z. Boom. Another big hour, but not the rock-crushing signals there were on 15m. Rates were good, but I had time to listen on 20m. It was wide open to Asia. I chased spots on 20 and then chased more spots on 15m. Then I lost focus and fell into DXer mode. Could not get a good run going on 10 or 15 so just kept chasing spots.
Things slowed a bit so I decided to run to McDonalds for breakfast and take the recycling to the dump, then a quick stop at the grocery store. That was a 50-minute off time. But, the mental break was helpful.
Was able to generate some good runs on 10 and 15 over the next 3 hours. Went to 20m early around 1830z. This is always a good time get some 20m QSOs without all the QRM, but it probably wasn’t the rate that staying on 10m would have delivered.
The weather looked nice outside so took a break to get in a 4-mile walk. Nothing wakes up the mind like some exercise in 50 degree weather. Was worth the almost 2-hour break, but it enabled K1LZ to get way ahead of me.
Spent the rest of the day bouncing around the bands working whatever I could. The big difference between CW and SSB is that this would be prime time on 40m. But, it is impossible to get any rate out of 40m phone. Not much room and too many loud signals. Tried CQing above 7200 and listening below 7100. Had some luck, but not enough to stay at it.
Found conditions on 15m to be very good to Japan (the bands were clearly improving). I did get a small JA run, which is always a pleasant surprise. One disadvantage of having a 5 in your call instead of a 1 is the JAs don’t get as excited…
Chased mults until 0030z. Decided to do what I did on CW and catch some sleep. Took a 3-hour break and woke up to find things pretty quiet. The low bands were not good at all the second night (no doubt due to the increasing MUFs).
At 07z I shut it down again for another sleep break. I was just about to fall asleep when I heard something from the headphones (I had forgotten to turn down the volume). I got up and saw there were a couple of multipliers on the cluster so I had to chase those…
Back on at 10z. Worked a few mults on 40 and then established a run on 20m at 1015z. Almost a carbon copy of the first day. I love that first 30 minutes when there are lots of stations calling and no QRM. The jump to 15m was at 1115z. (Local sunrise is 1112z)
Lucked into a great frequency on 10m. Had one of those amazing 45-minute periods where there was no QRM and I could hear all the way to the noise floor. Then a very very loud RW1F fired up 2 Khz below me and the splatter made it hard to hear the weak guys. This was the first of many instances on Sunday where I would get a spot, and then have the frequency trashed by a loud and wide European. There really is no way to fight back when using a K3. Asymmetrical warfare by the wide guys.
I started scoreboard watching and that kept me grinding away for Sunday. Was trying to keep up with the QSO rate K1LZ was doing and also stay ahead of AA3B. Anything to keep the mind occupied and the motivation up.
At 20z I took a break to get in another 4-mile walk. It was 30 degrees colder on Sunday than it had been on Saturday! Came back on for the last 2-1/2 hours and called CQ into the splatter on 20m and chased spots.
At 23z I found a very loud YE9BJM on 10m. He was soooo loud but didn’t seem to work anything but stations in PA and NJ. I wasted 10 minutes with no result. As I worked my way up the band I noticed the JAs were very loud. Decided to call CQ around 28560 for the last 20 minutes and was rewarded with some responses from JA, HL, BY, and a YB! This is one place where self-spotting helped attract attention.
Self-spotting is of benefit. I didn’t do it a lot, but it was always a good way to announce the presence on a new run frequency. It probably helped me on 160 and 80. When I saw a spot of my call age off the band map I would put one out. Usually resulted in a small bump of rate.
At one point on Sunday, I was reduced to just clicking on spots to make some rate. I quickly realized the value of being in the spot window. It is very nice to just click, listen, and then call or move on. The rate wasn’t bad either.
Fun QSOs:
- 9N7AA called me on 15 the first day and 10 the second.
- Sunday morning on 10m a loud station just gave their last 3 letters. I was surprised that it turned out to be a VU!
- Worked UN4Q on 4 bands.
- Cool having a small run on UA0 stations on 10m over Europe.
- KH0/KC0W had big pileups on 15 and 10. He wasn’t that loud, but threw my call in just to see what would happen. He came right back! That’s always a morale booster.
- Worked HH2AA on a tail end. He recorded it and put it on his YouTube channel.
Thanks to everyone around the world who chased W/VE stations all weekend. You make the contest fun!
This was the final big contest from this station. I am relocating to Ohio this summer. Now the work of taking everything down begins. Do I pull all the cables and go instant QRT or do it tactically to maintain some ability to get on the air during the process? It has been a great run and I will miss being loud from W1. But, nothing is more hopeful than building a new station so I have plenty to look forward to.
Station
K3 + AL-1200
K3 + AL-1500
160m: 1/4-wave GP, shunt fed tower
80m: 4 square, dipole
40m: 2/2 @ 110’/70′
20m: 5/5 @ 100’/50′
15m: 5/5 @ 66’/33′
10m: 6/4/4 @ 100’/65’/30′
10-20m: C31xr @ 40′
Rates
QSO/DX by hour and band
Hour 160M 80M 40M 20M 15M 10M Total Cumm Off
0000Z --+-- --+-- --+-- 12/7 69/17 25/13 106/37 106/37
0100Z 9/8 19/14 25/19 35/24 18/8 - 106/73 212/110
0200Z 3/2 35/14 32/17 16/14 7/6 - 93/53 305/163
0300Z 9/9 26/9 24/8 12/3 - - 71/29 376/192
0400Z 8/5 35/10 21/8 2/0 - - 66/23 442/215
0500Z 19/8 27/13 6/3 - - - 52/24 494/239
0600Z 6/6 4/0 70/6 5/3 - - 85/15 579/254
0700Z 1/0 - - - - - 1/0 580/254 59
0800Z --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- 0/0 580/254 60
0900Z - - - - - - 0/0 580/254 60
1000Z - 1/1 4/2 140/19 - - 145/22 725/276 3
1100Z - - 3/3 66/4 182/35 - 251/42 976/318
1200Z - - 1/1 19/7 80/5 89/29 189/42 1165/360
1300Z - - - 46/0 21/8 92/20 159/28 1324/388
1400Z - - - - 3/1 8/3 11/4 1335/392 52
1500Z - - - - 135/6 27/9 162/15 1497/407
1600Z --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- 26/3 156/12 182/15 1679/422
1700Z - - - - 45/5 121/1 166/6 1845/428
1800Z - - - 79/1 16/2 54/0 149/3 1994/431
1900Z - - - 11/1 47/0 28/3 86/4 2080/435 22
2000Z - - - - - - 0/0 2080/435 60
2100Z - - - 49/3 2/1 19/4 70/8 2150/443 22
2200Z - - - 50/8 13/2 10/0 73/10 2223/453
2300Z - - 11/1 14/0 53/1 10/1 88/3 2311/456
0000Z --+-- 4/1 --+-- 6/0 10/2 6/0 26/3 2337/459 28
0100Z - - - - - - 0/0 2337/459 60
0200Z - - - - - - 0/0 2337/459 60
0300Z - 3/0 8/2 3/0 - - 14/2 2351/461 35
0400Z 2/1 4/0 33/2 6/1 - - 45/4 2396/465
0500Z 1/0 26/1 4/2 3/1 - - 34/4 2430/469
0600Z 1/1 1/0 44/3 13/1 - - 59/5 2489/474
0700Z - - 3/2 3/0 - - 6/2 2495/476 50
0800Z --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- 0/0 2495/476 60
0900Z - - - - - - 0/0 2495/476 60
1000Z - - 4/1 105/2 - - 109/3 2604/479 9
1100Z - - 2/1 31/0 100/2 32/2 165/5 2769/484
1200Z - - - - 1/0 183/8 184/8 2953/492
1300Z - - - 15/2 48/0 64/3 127/5 3080/497
1400Z - - - - 9/0 108/2 117/2 3197/499
1500Z - - - - 60/0 51/1 111/1 3308/500
1600Z --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- 30/2 55/1 85/3 3393/503
1700Z - - - - 2/0 82/0 84/0 3477/503
1800Z - - - 31/2 6/1 16/1 53/4 3530/507
1900Z - - - 50/0 20/1 19/1 89/2 3619/509
2000Z - - - - - 1/0 1/0 3620/509 59
2100Z - - - 53/0 - 6/2 59/2 3679/511 30
2200Z - - 43/2 28/1 10/0 4/0 85/3 3764/514
2300Z - 8/0 11/0 4/0 4/0 46/4 73/4 3837/518
59/40 349/83 1017/108
Totals: 193/63 907/104 1312/120
Best 60 minutes: 288 at 01-Mar-2025 11:23
Worked on 6 bands (48):
4A7S 8P5A 9A1A 9A1P CQ8M CR3Z CR6K DA1TT DF6QV DM7XX ED8W EI7M HA6KG HC8M HK1T
II2C II2S IO3F IO5O IP4X J62K J75A KP3J LY4A LZ9A MD4K NP2X NP4DX OK5Z OM0R
OM2ADM P49Y PJ2T PJ4G RL3A RW7K SO9I SP8R TI1K TO3Z TO4A UW1M V31MA VP5M YR8D
YU5R ZF1A ZF2VE
Worked on 5 bands: 71
Most worked entities
160M 80M 40M 20M 15M 10M Total
DL 6 22 41 108 121 139 437
I 5 13 37 108 99 137 399
F 12 24 62 40 78 216
G 5 9 45 39 109 207
JA 2 26 94 51 173
SP 2 6 12 41 51 42 154
PA 5 7 48 28 61 149
EA 7 10 38 38 52 145
UA 2 4 13 24 42 36 121
Most JAs ever! Thank you, Italy!!
