Category: writeup

K5ZD, Single Op All Band, High Power

By Randall A. Thompson, K5ZD
k5zd@contesting.com

Summary Sheet

              CQ WORLD WIDE DX CONTEST -- 2004

  Call: K5ZD                     Country:  United States
  Mode: CW                       Category: Single Operator
                                           High Power

      BAND     QSO   QSO PTS  PTS/QSO   ZONES COUNTRIES

      160       62      141     2.27     13      34
       80      418     1157     2.77     21      83
       40      615     1680     2.73     29     106
       20     1174     3313     2.82     37     124
       15      803     2330     2.90     31     108
       10      131      334     2.55     23      68
     ---------------------------------------------------
     Totals   3203     8955     2.80    154     523  =>  6,062,535

   (Above is after log checking.)

Station Description

• Radio 1 – Yeasu FT-1000D + Alpha 76CA
• Radio 2 – Yeasu FT-1000D + Ameritron AL-1200

Tower 1 – 100′ Rohn 45G

• 40-2CD @ 110′
• 205CA @ 100′ / 50′
• 5-el 15 @70′ / 35′
• 80m Inv Vee with top at 95′
• 160m 1/4-wave GP with 4 elevated radials

Tower 2 – 90′ Rohn 25G

• 6-el 10 @90′ with 4/4 @ 60’/30′
• 40m 1/2-wave sloper to west
• 80m wire 4 square hanging from tower with 16 radials per vertical
• 160m shunt feed tower with 32 radials

Tower 3 – 40′ Rohn 25G

• TH7DXX at 40′

Comments

This contest suffered from two unusual failures: operator and antennas.

I wanted to do the contest. I prepared for the contest. But, when it started, I just didn’t seem to have the necessary motivation. Decided to sleep 90 minutes the first night in an effort to reduce the pain of the poor conditions. Have never slept during the first night a serious effort before.

Discovered the first antenna problem when I tried to turn the side mounted 15m beam to Europe Sat morning. It would get stuck at due North. Decided to push on using just the antenna fixed on Europe at 30′ and would try to determine the problem later in the day.

Nothing fixes motivation like some high rates. Managed a best 60 minutes of 195 QSOs on Sat morning. Maybe I should just use the low antenna all the time!

Ran out to the tower later and found one leg of the 80m inverted Vee had fallen into the 15m beam. Pulled it back out and was fully rotatable again.

Second antenna problem occurred around 02Z. Turned the 40/20m beam due south to work CP6CW on 40m. Then couldn’t get the Tailtwister to rotate back again. We had a full moon and good weather, but didn’t want to take a chance climbing the tower. Kept trying to play with it but no wind, so it wasn’t moving. This leaves my only 40m antenna fixed south.

Told my wife that this effectively ended the contest for me. Decided to play DXer on the low bands and try to make what score I could. 80m was great Sat night at Eu sunrise. Gave up the normal 40m opening (maybe 100 QSOs) and went to bed.

Sunday morning, got up and decided to do what I could with the fixed 20m beam to Europe at 50′. Conditions on 20m were great. Band was wide open across Europe and into zone 16. Worked lots of UA3 stations with great signals. Again, maybe I need to do all my 20m running with the low antenna only!

15m and 10m never did much on Sunday. 20m was always more productive.

Was windy on Sunday and I could play with the rotator where I could see it through the shack window. Finally got it off the stop and rotary again. Kept me in the contest and was worth a lot of multipliers in the last several hours.

Definitely a contest for SO2R (and to be in W1). No 10m, yet managed to work lots of countries. One advantage of calling CQ on 20m all day is that lots of strange and interesting things call in. Thus the big mult. Never heard zone 23 or 24 on any band.

Learned that sleep makes DX contests more fun. Also that sleep sure helps your mental ability to handle high rates. As conditions go down, we are going to find the activity is super concentrated into specific openings. May be worth sleeping more to maximize rate production.

Another lesson is that motivation is often a matter of managing expectations. When conditions were bad the first night, it was hard to imagine continuing all weekend. Best not to try competing with past rate sheets and just deal with what is happening now.

Lots of great operators out there. Just wish they would sign their calls more often. Not all of us are using packet.

Continent Statistics

           160M    80M    40M    20M    15M    10M   Total      %

    SA       4     10     23     37     36     32     142     4.4
    NA      32     57     82     88     60     42     361    11.2
    EU      26    339    482    930    639     37    2453    76.1
    AS       0      4     16     75     40      0     135     4.2
    AF       1      9     14     30     21     14      89     2.8
    OC       0      3      5     21      8      5      42     1.3

Rate Sheet

QSO/ZN+DX by hour and band - K5ZD CQ WW CW 2004

Hour   160M     80M     40M     20M     15M     10M    Total     Cumm     Off

0000Z  --+--   --+--   56/51   25/33   --+--   --+--   81/84     81/84  
0100Z    -     31/21   44/14    7/3      -       -     82/38    163/122 
0200Z    -      9/7    62/19     -       -       -     71/26    234/148 
0300Z   9/13   48/20   13/3      -       -       -     70/36    304/184 
0400Z  11/6    59/15     -       -       -       -     70/21    374/205 
0500Z  10/7    53/3      -       -       -       -     63/10    437/215 
0600Z   9/7    26/8    10/6     1/1      -       -     46/22    483/237 
0700Z    -     30/11   13/2      -       -       -     43/13    526/250 
0800Z   2/1     7/5    35/3    --+--   --+--   --+--   44/9     570/259 
0900Z    -      5/1     8/6     4/5      -       -     17/12    587/271    25
1000Z    -       -       -       -       -       -      0/0     587/271    60
1100Z   4/0     1/2     8/3    66/37    5/7      -     84/49    671/320     9
1200Z    -       -       -     73/8    86/41     -    159/49    830/369 
1300Z    -       -       -       -    180/13    9/14  189/27   1019/396 
1400Z    -       -       -       -    145/6    25/25  170/31   1189/427 
1500Z    -       -       -       -    105/3    21/15  126/18   1315/445 
1600Z  --+--   --+--   --+--   --+--   40/17   18/11   58/28   1373/473<-ant work 
1700Z    -       -       -     86/4    16/9    15/5   117/18   1490/491 
1800Z    -       -       -     59/6    20/10    2/2    81/18   1571/509 
1900Z    -       -       -     42/13    8/3     8/3    58/19   1629/528 
2000Z    -       -      2/0    36/6    15/5     3/4    56/15   1685/543 
2100Z    -       -     81/5      -       -      8/4    89/9    1774/552 
2200Z    -       -     96/6      -     16/6      -    112/12   1886/564 
2300Z    -       -     55/4     8/2     2/0      -     65/6    1951/570 
0000Z  --+--    1/0    23/0     2/2    --+--   --+--   26/2    1977/572    36
0100Z   3/2    19/3    10/2      -       -       -     32/7    2009/579 
0200Z   1/1      -     14/6      -       -       -     15/7    2024/586<-rotator 25
0300Z    -       -      2/2      -       -       -      2/2    2026/588    60
0400Z   1/2    37/5      -       -       -       -     38/7    2064/595 
0500Z   6/5    24/3      -       -       -       -     30/8    2094/603 
0600Z   5/3    72/0      -       -       -       -     77/3    2171/606     2
0700Z    -       -       -       -       -       -      0/0    2171/606    60
0800Z  --+--   --+--   --+--   --+--   --+--   --+--    0/0    2171/606    60
0900Z    -       -       -       -       -       -      0/0    2171/606    60
1000Z    -       -       -       -       -       -      0/0    2171/606    60
1100Z   2/0      -      1/0    51/6     2/2      -     56/8    2227/614    16
1200Z    -       -       -    110/1    16/4      -    126/5    2353/619 
1300Z    -       -       -     96/0    24/1      -    120/1    2473/620 
1400Z    -       -       -    112/2    12/2      -    124/4    2597/624 
1500Z    -       -       -     34/2    55/0     5/3    94/5    2691/629 
1600Z  --+--   --+--   --+--  136/7     4/0     1/0   141/7    2832/636 
1700Z    -       -       -    125/4     6/2      -    131/6    2963/642 
1800Z    -       -       -     31/5     4/2     7/3    42/10   3005/652 
1900Z    -       -       -     21/1    12/1     9/2    42/4    3047/656 
2000Z    -       -       -     21/6    10/3      -     31/9    3078/665 
2100Z    -       -     27/1     5/2     2/0      -     34/3    3112/668 
2200Z    -       -     17/0    30/4      -       -     47/4    3159/672 
2300Z    -       -     45/4     1/1    19/2      -     65/7    3224/679 

Total: 63/47 422/104 622/137 1182/161 804/139 131/91 

Unique callsigns worked = 2243

The best 60 minute rate was 195/hour from 1233 to 1332
The best 30 minute rate was 212/hour from 1256 to 1325
The best 10 minute rate was 234/hour from 1256 to 1305

The best 1 minute rates were:
 5 QSOs/minute    5 times.
 4 QSOs/minute   91 times.
 3 QSOs/minute  274 times.
 2 QSOs/minute  571 times.
 1 QSOs/minute  871 times.

There were 616 band changes and 268 probable 2nd radio QSOs.

Multi-band QSOs
----------------
1 bands    1651
2 bands     360
3 bands     132
4 bands      58
5 bands      27
6 bands      15

The following stations were worked on 6 bands:

J7OJ        WP2Z        VP2MZM      LZ9W        RU1A        PJ2T        
VP9I        HC8N        VE3YAA      DF0HQ       V31RM       S52ZW       
VE3DZ       8P5A        VE3JM       

----- S i n g l e   B a n d   Q S O ' s  -----
Band    160     80     40     20     15     10
----------------------------------------------
QSOs     25    198    287    699    401     41

Breakdown by Zone

Zone     160     80     40     20     15     10  Total    Pct
-------------------------------------------------------------
14        10    130    200    439    281     16   1076   32.9
15        11    174    225    315    268     17   1010   30.9
16         3     27     39    140     63      3    275    8.4
4         11     19     30     35     15     14    124    3.8
20         2      9     18     34     31      1     95    2.9
8          7     16     21     17     17     16     94    2.9
5         10     13     23     19      9      5     79    2.4
25         0      1      6     19     30      0     56    1.7
9          3      7     10     11      9      8     48    1.5
33         1      6      8     17     11      5     48    1.5
13         0      2      4     12     12     15     45    1.4
17         0      1      2     38      2      0     43    1.3
11         0      0      6      9     12      5     32    1.0
3          2      6      2      5      7      3     25    0.8
7          1      1      4      7      5      4     22    0.7
35         0      3      4      4      5      3     19    0.6
32         0      2      2      7      3      4     18    0.6
40         0      1      3      7      2      0     13    0.4
10         1      1      2      2      3      3     12    0.4
38         0      0      2      4      2      2     10    0.3
30         0      0      1      7      1      0      9    0.3
6          0      1      1      1      4      1      8    0.2
31         0      1      1      2      2      1      7    0.2
21         0      0      2      3      1      0      6    0.2
2          1      1      1      2      1      0      6    0.2
39         0      0      0      3      1      1      5    0.2
18         0      0      1      4      0      0      5    0.2
36         0      0      0      2      1      2      5    0.2
26         0      0      0      4      0      0      4    0.1
22         0      0      1      1      2      0      4    0.1
28         0      0      1      3      0      0      4    0.1
12         0      0      0      2      0      1      3    0.1
1          0      0      0      2      1      0      3    0.1
27         0      0      0      1      2      0      3    0.1
29         0      0      0      2      0      0      2    0.1
19         0      0      1      1      0      0      2    0.1
37         0      0      0      1      0      1      2    0.1
34         0      0      1      0      1      0      2    0.1
------------------------------------------------------
Total     63    422    622   1182    804    131   3224

Breakdown by Country

          160M    80M    40M    20M    15M    10M   Total

   3D2              1      1      1      1      1       5
    3V              1      2      1      1              5
    4L                            1                     1
  4U1I                     1                            1
  4U1U       1      1                                   2
  4U1V              1                    1              2
    4X              1      1      1      2              5
    5B              1      1      1      1              4
    5H                            1             1       2
    5R                            1                     1
    5U              1      1      1      1      1       5
    6W              1      1      1      1      1       5
    6Y                     1                            1
    7X                                          1       1
    8P       1      1      1      1      1      1       6
    8Q                     1             1              2
    8R                                   1              1
    9A              6      5     10     13      3      37
    9G                            1                     1
   9M2                            1                     1
   9M6                            1                     1
    9Y              1      1      1      1      1       5
    A4                     1             1              2
    A6                     1      1                     2
    C3                     1                            1
    C5                     1             1              2
    C6              1      1      2      1              5
    CE                            2             1       3
   CE9                     1      2             1       4
    CM       1      1      3             1              6
    CN              1             1                     2
    CP                     1      1      1      1       4
    CT              2      1      5      4      2      14
   CT3              2      3      4      3      2      14
    CU                     2                            2
    CX                     1      3      2      2       8
    D4              1      1      1      1      1       5
    DL       3     53     69    145     91      1     362
    DU                            1                     1
    EA              7     27     43     25      6     108
   EA6              1      1      2      1      1       6
   EA8       1      2      3     10      6      2      24
   EA9                            1                     1
    EI       1      2      4      3      5             15
    ER                     1      1                     2
    ES              2      2      1      3              8
    EU       1      3      1      7      4             16
    EY                            1                     1
     F       2     20     18     47     39      2     128
    FM              1      1      1      1      2       6
    FR                            1      1      1       3
     G             12     22     65     38            137
    GD                            1      1              2
    GI              1      2                            3
    GJ       1      1      1      1      2              6
    GM              5      6      7      8      1      27
    GU                     1      3      1              5
    GW              2      2      5      3      1      13
    HA       5     17     26     24     16      2      90
    HB              3      9     20      8             40
    HC                                          1       1
   HC8       1      1      1      1      1      1       6
    HI              1      2      1      1      1       6
    HK                            2                     2
    HP                            1                     1
    HR                            1                     1
    HS                            3                     3
     I             13     34     42     36      3     128
   IG9                                   1              1
    IS                     1      1      4              6
   IT9                     1             1              2
    J7       1      2      2      2      2      2      11
    JA              1      6     19     30             56
    JW                            2                     2
     K       4      8     16     23      5      7      63
   KH2                                   2              2
   KH6              1      1      2      2      1       7
    KL                            2      1              3
   KP2       2      1      1      1      1      1       7
   KP4              2      4      2      3      2      13
    LA              1      5     11      7      1      25
    LU              2      1      6      8     11      28
    LX              1      2      3      2              8
    LY              6      4     18      6             34
    LZ       1      3      6     11     10      1      32
    OA                                   1              1
    OD                            1      1              2
    OE              5      5      7      6             23
    OH             10      6     36     21      1      74
   OH0              2      1             1      1       5
    OK       1     45     42     60     56      1     205
    OM       1     10     14     12     12      1      50
    ON       1      7      8     16      6             38
    OX                            1      1              2
    OY                     2      1                     3
    OZ       1      4      3     11      7             26
    P4       1      3      5      4      5      4      22
    PA              3      4     19     15             41
   PJ2       1      1      1      2      2      1       8
   PJ7                     1                            1
    PY                     6      9     12      5      32
    S5       1     14     22     25     28      2      92
    S9                            2      1      2       5
    SM       1      5      9     31     18      1      65
    SP       1     23     29     41     38            132
    SU                     1             1              2
    SV                     3      6      2             11
   SV9              1                                   1
    T9              1      9      2      3             15
    TA                     1                            1
    TF              1      3      4      1              9
    TI                     2      2      2      1       7
    TK                     1      1                     2
    TU                                   1              1
    UA       2     13     18     91     30      2     156
   UA2       1      1      1      4                     7
   UA9              1      3     38      2             44
    UN                     1      4                     5
    UR             11     19     41     29      1     101
    V2              1      1      1      1      1       5
    V3       1      1      2      1      2      1       8
    V4       1                    1      1      1       4
    V5                     1      2      1      1       5
    VE      18     29     39     37     26     14     163
    VK                     1      8      1             10
  VK0M                            1                     1
  VK9N                            1                     1
  VP2E              1             1      1      1       4
  VP2M       1      1      1      2      1      2       8
  VP2V              1                                   1
   VP5              1      1      1      1      1       5
   VP8                     1      1      1      1       4
 VP8/h                     1      1      1              3
   VP9       1      1      1      1      1      1       6
    VU                            1      1              2
    XE              1      1      1      4      1       8
    XU                            1                     1
    YB                     1      1                     2
    YI                            1                     1
    YL              4      1      7      6             18
    YN                            1      1      1       3
    YO       1      3      6     12     14             36
    YU       1     13     18     21     16      3      72
    YV       1      2      3      2             2      10
    Z3              1      2      4      1              8
    ZA                     1                            1
   ZC4                            1      1              2
    ZF              1      1      1      1      1       5
 ZK1/s              1                           1       2
    ZL                     1      5      2      2      10
    ZS                            2      1      1       4

K5ZD, Single Op All Band, High Power

By Randall A. Thompson, K5ZD
k5zd@contesting.com

Summary Sheet

              CQ WORLD WIDE DX CONTEST -- 2004

  Call: K5ZD                     Country:  United States
  Mode: RTTY                     Category: Single Operator
                                           High Power

Band         QSOs   Pts  State/Prov  DX   Zones
      ------------------------------------------
      80:    181    391      32      37     10
      40:    295    645      40      52     19
      20:    578   1512      37      75     29
      15:    545   1513      23      78     24
      10:     21     52       5       8      8
      ------------------------------------------
      Total: 1620  4113     137     250     90 Total Score = 1,961,901

(Above is claimed score.)

Station Description

• Radio 1 – Yeasu FT-1000D + Alpha 76CA
• Radio 2 – Yeasu FT-1000D + Ameritron AL-1200

Tower 1 – 100′ Rohn 45G

• 40-2CD @ 110′
• 205CA @ 100′ / 50′
• 5-el 15 @70′ / 35′
• 80m Inv Vee with top at 95′

Tower 2 – 90′ Rohn 25G

• 6-el 10 @90′ with 4/4 @ 60’/30′
• 80m 1/4-wave elevated GP with 16 radials

Tower 3 – 40′ Rohn 25G

• TH7DXX at 40′

Comments

Wow. What a fun contest!

Was just going to play around and make sure the station was ready for contest season. Had a goal of making 800 QSOs or so. Was having so much fun I couldn’t stop operating! Ended up with 20 hours, but lots of breaks.

Almost never break 100 QSOs/hour on RTTY and did it 3 hours in a row. All thanks to the extra QSOs from the second radio. RTTY contests are ideal for practicing and improving SO2R technique. You get to do all the practice of operating and switching, while the computer does the job of copying.

The RTTY ops just keep getting better and better. Only a few guys would call by sending their call 6 to 9 times. And if you are calling someone, why add “PSE” at the end???

Great to see so many of the new European calls. The future of contesting looks bright. We need more activity from the USA. Many easy multipliers were missed.

WriteLog is unbelievable. I just used the stock product and it seemed to be able to copy anything. And the SO2R support is superb.

Ratesheet

Hour       80M     40M     20M     15M     10M    Total      Cumm   Off
D1-0100Z    -       -      7/12     -       -      7/12      7/12  
D1-0200Z  38/32     -      3/2      -       -     41/34     48/46  
D1-0300Z  40/17   12/16     -       -       -     52/33    100/79  
D1-0400Z  36/14   28/23     -       -       -     64/37    164/116 
D1-0500Z  18/6    38/16    1/2      -       -     57/24    221/140    1
D1-0600Z    -       -       -       -       -      0/0     221/140   60
D1-0700Z    -       -       -       -       -      0/0     221/140   60
D1-0800Z  --+--   --+--   --+--   --+--   --+--    0/0     221/140   60
D1-0900Z    -       -       -       -       -      0/0     221/140   60
D1-1000Z    -       -       -       -       -      0/0     221/140   60
D1-1100Z    -       -       -       -       -      0/0     221/140   60
D1-1200Z    -       -       -       -       -      0/0     221/140   60
D1-1300Z    -       -       -      1/2      -      1/2     222/142   60
D1-1400Z    -       -     26/27   91/28     -    117/55    339/197 
D1-1500Z    -       -     30/18   89/31     -    119/49    458/246 
D1-1600Z  --+--   --+--   26/10   80/13    3/4   109/27    567/273 
D1-1700Z    -       -     25/5    63/14     -     88/19    655/292    1
D1-1800Z    -       -       -       -       -      0/0     655/292   60
D1-1900Z    -       -     24/1     7/8      -     31/9     686/301   43
D1-2000Z    -       -     71/4    22/8     1/0    94/12    780/313 
D1-2100Z    -       -     33/9     2/0      -     35/9     815/322   34
D1-2200Z    -      1/1     1/0      -       -      2/1     817/323   59
D1-2300Z    -     18/10    8/7      -       -     26/17    843/340   40
D2-0000Z  --+--   15/3    25/6    --+--   --+--   40/9     883/349   33
D2-0100Z  14/1    20/4    25/2      -       -     59/7     942/356 
D2-0200Z   9/1    46/12   11/4      -       -     66/17   1008/373 
D2-0300Z  18/6    47/8      -       -       -     65/14   1073/387 
D2-0400Z   1/0    14/1     1/0      -       -     16/1    1089/388   42
D2-0500Z    -       -       -       -       -      0/0    1089/388   60
D2-0600Z    -       -       -       -       -      0/0    1089/388   60
D2-0700Z    -       -       -       -       -      0/0    1089/388   60
D2-0800Z  --+--   --+--   --+--   --+--   --+--    0/0    1089/388   60
D2-0900Z    -       -       -       -       -      0/0    1089/388   60
D2-1000Z   7/2    17/9     1/0      -       -     25/11   1114/399   36
D2-1100Z    -      5/3    55/8     8/1      -     68/12   1182/411   14
D2-1200Z    -       -       -       -       -      0/0    1182/411   60
D2-1300Z    -       -     19/0    53/3      -     72/3    1254/414   16
D2-1400Z    -       -     31/6    62/6     2/0    95/12   1349/426 
D2-1500Z    -       -     62/3    37/4      -     99/7    1448/433 
D2-1600Z  --+--   --+--   36/2    17/4     1/3    54/9    1502/442   15
D2-1700Z    -       -       -       -       -      0/0    1502/442   60
D2-1800Z    -       -       -      9/1      -      9/1    1511/443   13
D2-1900Z    -       -       -       -       -      0/0    1511/443   60
D2-2000Z    -       -       -       -       -      0/0    1511/443   60
D2-2100Z    -       -     17/3     3/2     8/10   28/15   1539/458    1
D2-2200Z    -       -       -       -      1/0     1/0    1540/458   60
D2-2300Z    -     34/5    40/10    1/0     5/4    80/19   1620/477 

Total:   181/79  295/111 578/141 545/125  21/21

 

K5ZD (W4PA opr.), Single Op All Band, High Power

                     ARRL DX Contest, CW
 
 Call: K5ZD
 Operator(s): W4PA
 Station: K5ZD
 
 Class: SOAB HP
 QTH: MA
 Operating Time (hrs): 48
 Radios: SO2R
 
 Summary:
  Band  QSOs  Mults
 -------------------
   160:   98    58
    80:  515    83
    40: 1127    98
    20: 1081   105
    15: 1073    97
    10:  407    79
 -------------------
 Total: 4301   520  Total Score = 6,706,440
 
 Club: Tennessee Contest Group

Comments

 New W/VE single op, high power record.   The question is, am I the only one? Haven’t seen too many SOABHP scores yet on the 3830 ‘net.  

Let me be the first (or third, or 20th) to say what a class thing it was for the guys in Dominica to use J7OJ as the callsign this weekend. I thought that was really cool, a great way to pay tribute to Jim.

Contest:  Well…after getting the high claimed score for CQ WW CW this year, and having been disappointed in how I did in ARRL DX CW in 2003 I decided I was going ALL OUT for this one.  Randy helped the cause immensely by getting a 4 square up on 80 meters and a second 160m transmit antenna that is definitely improving the K5ZD signal to the Caribbean.  K5ZD has gone from calling…and calling…Carib mults on 160 to pounding the pileup first or second call almost every time. 

I decided to be extra aggressive in gathering multipliers and made a couple of changes in mult technique that really paid off this weekend.

I started the contest CQing on 40m and was able to pull off working 11 mults on 160 in the first hour in between running on 40.  I had 40 multipliers on 160 when the sun came up Saturday morning.

My plans were simple, operate all 48 hours without a break, maximize band openings, aggressively hunt down/move multipliers and manage the radios the way I wanted…meaning the Orion was the run radio 99% of the time and Randy’s FT1000D was the mult radio.  The only exception to this was using the Orion to hunt multipliers on 160, and I would just use the 1000D on 40 or 80 to CQ while doing.  Except for 160, hunting mults is generally not a weak signal affair – so having the radio that was going to allow me to best copy weak signals complete callsign the first time, every time as the run radio was most important to maximizing the score totals.  With the BW set at 400 Hz or so the whole weekend, I never heard anyone or anything else in my passband but callers on my run frequency the entire 48 hours.  Man, did I ever work a lot of 5 watters on 80 and 40 meters this weekend!

I went the first 33 hours without getting out of the chair except to run (literally) to the bathroom in the next room.  I pre-planned a break for when I usually get to be losing it a little bit from sleep deprivation, around 4 a.m. local Sunday.  0908Z Sunday I got up for a 15 minute break, ate some food, made coffee, changed my clothes, and then was at the radio non-stop to the end.

So that’s the story.  I regret 10 meters didn’t pull a strong opening to EU on Sunday or I think 7,000,000 would have been realistic this weekend.  Thanks for all the Q’s – I am again doing the writeup for QST magazine to appear in the fall for this contest.  Your anecdotes and pics always welcome.

73

Scott W4PA

Rate Sheet

QSO/DX by hour and band

 Hour     160M     80M     40M     20M     15M     10M    Total     Cumm    OffTime

D1-0000Z  11/11    5/5   106/34   --+--   --+--   --+--  122/50    122/50  
D1-0100Z   4/3     7/7    86/6    10/10     -       -    107/26    229/76  
D1-0200Z   4/4    46/15   31/4     6/2      -       -     87/25    316/101 
D1-0300Z   5/4    91/12   14/9      -       -       -    110/25    426/126 
D1-0400Z   1/1    18/5    38/7      -       -       -     57/13    483/139 
D1-0500Z  10/8     8/5    84/3      -       -       -    102/16    585/155 
D1-0600Z   1/1    32/3    33/5      -       -       -     66/9     651/164 
D1-0700Z   7/6     7/6    88/3      -       -       -    102/15    753/179 
D1-0800Z   2/2     5/3    83/2    --+--   --+--   --+--   90/7     843/186 
D1-0900Z    -      4/4    48/10     -       -       -     52/14    895/200 
D1-1000Z   2/0     5/3     8/2      -       -       -     15/5     910/205 
D1-1100Z    -       -       -    127/34   34/18     -    161/52   1071/257 
D1-1200Z    -       -       -       -    154/20    7/7   161/27   1232/284 
D1-1300Z    -       -       -       -     73/9    68/19  141/28   1373/312 
D1-1400Z    -       -       -       -     38/6    73/9   111/15   1484/327 
D1-1500Z    -       -       -       -     16/6   127/9   143/15   1627/342 
D1-1600Z  --+--   --+--   --+--   --+--   57/2    67/5   124/7    1751/349 
D1-1700Z    -       -       -       -    111/1    24/13  135/14   1886/363 
D1-1800Z    -       -       -    110/4    16/7     4/2   130/13   2016/376 
D1-1900Z    -       -       -    138/7     4/4     2/2   144/13   2160/389 
D1-2000Z    -       -       -     81/6     8/3     2/1    91/10   2251/399 
D1-2100Z    -       -      2/2    66/7     8/5     5/5    81/19   2332/418 
D1-2200Z  20/5      -      7/0    29/5      -      1/1    57/11   2389/429 
D1-2300Z   1/1   103/1      -      5/3     3/0      -    112/5    2501/434 
D2-0000Z  --+--   42/1    36/1     4/1    --+--   --+--   82/3    2583/437 
D2-0100Z   8/3     5/1    19/2     7/4      -       -     39/10   2622/447 
D2-0200Z   1/0    22/1    20/0     1/0      -       -     44/1    2666/448 
D2-0300Z   3/2    57/1     8/2      -       -       -     68/5    2734/453 
D2-0400Z   4/1    12/2    39/1      -       -       -     55/4    2789/457 
D2-0500Z   5/1     3/0    49/0      -       -       -     57/1    2846/458 
D2-0600Z   4/1     2/1    52/2      -       -       -     58/4    2904/462 
D2-0700Z   2/1     8/2    54/0      -       -       -     64/3    2968/465 
D2-0800Z   1/1     1/1    68/1    --+--   --+--   --+--   70/3    3038/468 
D2-0900Z    -       -      6/0    13/0      -       -     19/0    3057/468 
D2-1000Z   1/1      -       -     92/1      -       -     93/2    3150/470 
D2-1100Z    -       -       -    111/2     3/0      -    114/2    3264/472 
D2-1200Z    -       -       -     98/7    31/1      -    129/8    3393/480 
D2-1300Z    -       -       -       -    118/5     2/1   120/6    3513/486 
D2-1400Z    -       -       -      3/2   115/1     1/1   119/4    3632/490 
D2-1500Z    -       -       -      1/0    94/1     6/1   101/2    3733/492 
D2-1600Z  --+--   --+--   --+--    5/2    78/4     7/1    90/7    3823/499 
D2-1700Z    -       -       -      6/0    77/2     9/2    92/4    3915/503 
D2-1800Z    -       -       -     52/0    22/1     2/0    76/1    3991/504 
D2-1900Z    -       -       -     60/1     7/1      -     67/2    4058/506 
D2-2000Z    -       -       -     43/1     4/0      -     47/1    4105/507 
D2-2100Z    -       -     84/1     4/0      -       -     88/1    4193/508 
D2-2200Z    -       -     54/1     5/3     2/0      -     61/4    4254/512 
D2-2300Z   1/1    32/4     9/0     4/3      -       -     46/8    4300/520 

Total:    98/58  515/83 1126/98 1081/1051073/97  407/79 

K5ZD, Single Op All Band, High Power

By Randall A. Thompson, K5ZD
k5zd@contesting.com

Summary Sheet

              CQ WORLD WIDE DX CONTEST -- 2003

  Call: K5ZD                     Country:  United States
  Mode: CW                       Category: Single Operator
                                           High Power

      BAND     QSO   QSO PTS  PTS/QSO   ZONES COUNTRIES

      160       22       54     2.45      8      18
       80      289      820     2.84     16      70
       40      726     2100     2.89     30      93
       20      753     2182     2.90     34     109
       15      756     2217     2.93     29     101
       10      628     1847     2.94     29      96
     ---------------------------------------------------

     Totals   3174     9220     2.90    146     487  =>  5,836,160

   (Above is before log checking.)

Station Description

• Radio 1 – Yeasu FT-1000D + Alpha 76CA
• Radio 2 – Yeasu FT-1000D + Ameritron AL-1200

Tower 1 – 100′ Rohn 45G

• 40-2CD @ 110′
• 205CA @ 100′ / 50′
• 5-el 15 @70′ / 35′
• 80m Inv Vee with top at 95′
• 160m 1/4-wave GP with 4 elevated radials

Tower 2 – 90′ Rohn 25G

• 6-el 10 @90′ with 4/4 @ 60’/30′
• 40m 1/2-wave sloper to west
• 80m wire 4 square hanging from tower with 16 radials per vertical
• 160m shunt feed tower with 32 radials

Tower 3 – 40′ Rohn 25G

• TH7DXX at 40′

Comments…

A truly fun weekend!

With a heavy work travel schedule and trying to take two MBA classes, I let my wife talk me into not doing the contest seriously. Operated the first 3 hours and then went to bed. Woke up early, did some DXing on the low bands and then CQed for awhile. Took the dog for a walk and ran some errands. Worked more guys. Then went off to meet a classmate to work on a school project. Came back and had dinner. Now almost 23 hours into the contest and I had already taken 12 hours off.

Decided to see how the bands were. Still good! Decided I would stay up late and see what I had missed by sleeping the first night. Set goal of working 300 countries. Finally made myself quit at 3AM and went to bed. By now, the contest bug is starting to bite. Woke up 3 hours later and decided to crank up the QSO machine and see what I could do to get the QSO totals respectable on all bands. At the 24 hour mark of operating time I had 4Meg. Almost quit then, but still having too much fun.

Still 8 hours of the contest to go. Can’t stop because YCCC president N1XS has exhorted everyone to keep their butt in the chair. Got this crazy idea that maybe I could sneak into the Top Ten box. Kept CQing and doing the SO2R thing. Score kept going up. Ended with an exhilarating run on 7000.6.

Almost wish I had done the whole thing, but probably wouldn’t have had as much fun. Winning CQ WW is hard. You have to keep pushing all the time and make sure you get good frequencies on the hot band. There is no time to rest or relax. By sleeping the first night, I had no pressure and was able to go DXing when I got tired of CQing. It actually helped me be more on the right band than if I had been trying. Not to mention how much more fun (and accurate) it is to operate with enough sleep.

Only ran into a few packet pileups. Most of the time I would just keep tuning. Did work TO4WW on 40. Had no idea where it was other than zone 39. Turns out to be an ALL TIME new one for me! (He was listening up 1-2 KHz and it was exactly the right thing to do. Who says you can’t work split in a contest?)

7S2E was still loud on 40m at 1130Z. Wow. On Sunday morning, 40m was the best I have ever heard over the pole to Japan. 40 was wall to wall all the way up to 7100. My best runs Sat night were on 7085 and 7076.

Managed to work 2 JA stations on 80 Saturday morning.

160 was funny. Heard lots of stuff Friday night but it couldn’t hear me. Saturday managed to work a few Eu, but it wasn’t worth it. Didn’t matter because 80 and 40 were so good.

Overall operating was excellent. No real frequency fights. Less than the usual number of dupes. Most people got my call right. Didn’t seem like I got spotted as KH7D this year.

As always, amazing how many stations made big QSO totals that I never even heard. Was really searching for N5TJ at KP3Z and only worked him on 1 band! He had over 6000 QSOs! Worked VP9I, A45XR, and JY8YB on only one band. ZD8Z on 2 bands. Heard A61AJ on 160, but only worked him on 2 bands. That’s part of what makes this contest great. But also why packet is such an advantage of the multi-ops. It is just too easy for the good stuff to get lost in the noise.

Breakdown below. I assume rates were better than normal on day 2 because I hadn’t worked everyone on day 1.

Continent Statistics

          160M    80M    40M    20M    15M    10M   Total      %

    EU       8    230    601    572    613    536    2560    80.7
    NA      10     39     57     54     43     29     232     7.3
    AF       1      7     14     23     18     11      74     2.3
    AS       0      4     31     69     50     13     167     5.3
    SA       3      8     12     25     28     32     108     3.4
    OC       0      1      9      9      4      7      30     0.9

Rate Sheet

QSO/ZN+DX by hour and band

Hour   160M     80M     40M     20M     15M     10M    Total     Cumm    OffTime

0000Z  --+--   --+--   --+--   71/58   11/6    --+--   82/64     82/64  
0100Z    -       -     85/56   24/12    2/2      -    111/70    193/134 
0200Z   3/6    50/36    4/1    16/14     -       -     73/57    266/191 
0300Z   1/2    50/10   11/7     4/4      -       -     66/23    332/214    10
0400Z    -       -       -       -       -       -      0/0     332/214    60
0500Z    -       -       -       -       -       -      0/0     332/214    60
0600Z    -       -       -       -       -       -      0/0     332/214    60
0700Z    -       -       -       -       -       -      0/0     332/214    60
0800Z  --+--   --+--   --+--   --+--   --+--   --+--    0/0     332/214    60
0900Z    -       -       -       -       -       -      0/0     332/214    60
1000Z   1/1    13/11   14/13     -       -       -     28/25    360/239    22
1100Z   3/5     3/3    10/5    28/5    58/23     -    102/41    462/280 
1200Z    -       -       -      9/5   164/20    4/6   177/31    639/311 
1300Z    -       -       -       -     21/5   127/38  148/43    787/354 
1400Z    -       -       -       -     79/9    51/7   130/16    917/370     5
1500Z    -       -       -       -       -       -      0/0     917/370    60
1600Z  --+--   --+--   --+--   --+--   --+--   --+--    0/0     917/370    60
1700Z    -       -       -     63/9     5/2    32/24  100/35   1017/405     6
1800Z    -       -       -     91/4    39/23    1/2   131/29   1148/434 
1900Z    -       -       -       -       -      6/5     6/5    1154/439    55
2000Z    -       -       -       -       -       -      0/0    1154/439    60
2100Z    -       -       -       -       -       -      0/0    1154/439    60
2200Z    -       -       -       -      1/2     9/8    10/10   1164/449    47
2300Z    -       -     35/8    20/3    13/4     4/0    72/15   1236/464 
0000Z  --+--   --+--   81/18    7/5    --+--   --+--   88/23   1324/487 
0100Z   7/7    33/4    20/0     2/0      -       -     62/11   1386/498 
0200Z    -     35/6    28/4      -       -       -     63/10   1449/508 
0300Z   6/4    43/6     6/0     1/1      -       -     56/11   1505/519 
0400Z    -     17/3    67/4     4/2      -       -     88/9    1593/528 
0500Z    -     22/4    91/3      -       -       -    113/7    1706/535 
0600Z    -     10/2    62/0     2/1      -       -     74/3    1780/538 
0700Z    -      6/1    81/2     3/1      -       -     90/4    1870/542 
0800Z   1/1     5/0     8/0    --+--   --+--   --+--   14/1    1884/543    43
0900Z    -       -       -       -       -       -      0/0    1884/543    60
1000Z    -       -       -       -       -       -      0/0    1884/543    60
1100Z    -      2/0     9/2     2/0      -       -     13/2    1897/545    38
1200Z    -       -       -    101/9    30/8      -    131/17   2028/562 
1300Z    -       -       -       -     16/1   140/9   156/10   2184/572 
1400Z    -       -       -       -     14/2   132/5   146/7    2330/579 
1500Z    -       -       -       -     67/3    78/3   145/6    2475/585 
1600Z  --+--   --+--   --+--   --+--  130/2     8/3   138/5    2613/590 
1700Z    -       -       -     48/0    56/2     8/1   112/3    2725/593 
1800Z    -       -       -    109/2    18/7     1/0   128/9    2853/602 
1900Z    -       -       -     52/3     6/0    15/4    73/7    2926/609    10
2000Z    -       -       -     26/0     8/7     5/4    39/11   2965/620    20
2100Z    -       -     11/0    36/3     4/0     3/2    54/5    3019/625 
2200Z    -       -     35/0    10/1    14/2     4/4    63/7    3082/632 
2300Z    -       -     68/0    24/1      -       -     92/1    3174/633 

Total: 22/26  289/86  726/123 753/143 756/130 628/125

Unique callsigns worked = 2174

The best 60 minute rate was 180/hour from 1203 to 1302
The best 30 minute rate was 192/hour from 1256 to 1325
The best 10 minute rate was 222/hour from 1316 to 1325

The best 1 minute rates were:
 5 QSOs/minute    8 times.
 4 QSOs/minute  100 times.
 3 QSOs/minute  350 times.
 2 QSOs/minute  543 times.
 1 QSOs/minute  598 times.

There were 553 band changes and 260 probable 2nd radio QSOs.

Multi-band QSOs
----------------
1 bands    1591
2 bands     331
3 bands     132
4 bands      81
5 bands      33
6 bands       6

The following stations were worked on 6 bands:

9A1A        HC8N        P40E        PJ2T        VP5X        VE3EJ       

----- S i n g l e   B a n d   Q S O ' s  -----
Band    160     80     40     20     15     10

QSOs     10    129    379    381    391    301

Breakdown by Zone

Mult     160     80     40     20     15     10  Total    Pct
-------------------------------------------------------------
14         5     81    222    271    259    274   1112   34.7
15         3    107    250    219    240    211   1030   32.1
16         0     34    105     59     90     30    318    9.9
20         0     10     31     24     27     20    112    3.5
4          4     13     25     15     11      8     76    2.4
8          4     12     13     16     15     10     70    2.2
17         0      0      9     28     23      2     62    1.9
25         0      2      7     16     15      9     49    1.5
5          2     10     10     15      4      3     44    1.4
33         1      5      9     12     11      5     43    1.3
9          2      5      5      8     10      7     37    1.2
13         0      0      0      9     10     15     34    1.1
11         0      2      6      7      7      7     29    0.9
3          0      2      5      2      6      2     17    0.5
35         0      2      2      6      3      2     15    0.5
7          0      2      1      2      4      3     12    0.4
18         0      0      4      7      0      0     11    0.3
30         0      0      4      4      0      1      9    0.3
38         0      0      2      4      1      2      9    0.3
32         0      0      2      2      2      3      9    0.3
31         0      1      2      2      2      2      9    0.3
10         1      1      1      2      1      2      8    0.2
40         0      0      1      3      2      2      8    0.2
21         0      0      2      1      5      0      8    0.2
6          0      0      2      3      1      2      8    0.2
19         0      0      0      3      2      1      6    0.2
36         0      0      0      2      1      1      4    0.1
28         0      0      0      3      0      0      3    0.1
24         0      0      1      2      0      0      3    0.1
1          0      0      1      0      1      1      3    0.1
2          0      0      1      1      1      0      3    0.1
26         0      0      0      2      0      0      2    0.1
27         0      0      0      1      0      1      2    0.1
37         0      0      1      0      1      0      2    0.1
34         0      0      0      0      1      1      2    0.1
29         0      0      1      0      0      0      1    0.0
39         0      0      1      0      0      0      1    0.0
23         0      0      0      1      0      0      1    0.0
12         0      0      0      0      0      1      1    0.0
22         0      0      0      1      0      0      1    0.0
------------------------------------------------------
Total     22    289    726    753    756    628   3174

Breakdown by Country

          160M    80M    40M    20M    15M    10M   Total

    3V              1      2      1      2              6
    4J                                   1              1
    4L                            1                     1
  4U1I                     1                            1
    4X                     1      1      2              4
    5B              2      3      3      2      1      11
    5N                            1                     1
    5U              1      1      1      1      1       5
    5W                                          1       1
    5X                     1             1              2
    6Y       1      2      1      1      1      1       7
    7X              1                                   1
    8P              1      1      1      1      1       5
    9A       1      5      5      6     10      7      34
    9G                            1                     1
    9H                     1                    2       3
    9K                     1                            1
   9M2                            3                     3
    9Y              1      2      1      1      1       6
    A4                                   1              1
    A6                     1             1              2
    CE                                          1       1
   CE9                            1                     1
    CM              2      3      1      1      1       8
    CN                            1      1              2
    CT                     2      5      3      4      14
   CT3              1      3      4      3      2      13
    CU                            1                     1
    CX                            1      4      2       7
    D4              1             1      1      1       4
    DL       1     24     92     94    103     86     400
    DU                            1                     1
    EA              4      8     26     14     15      67
   EA6                     1             2      1       4
   EA8       1      2      4      6      5      3      21
    EI       1             1                    2       4
    EK                                   1              1
    EL                     1      1                     2
    ER              1                           1       2
    ES              1      1      3      3      6      14
    EU              3      6      2      7      4      22
    EX                                   2              2
    EY                            1                     1
     F              8     25     34     27     29     123
    FJ                                   1              1
    FM       1             1                            2
    FY                            1             1       2
     G             13     28     32     36     44     153
    GD                                          1       1
    GI                            1             1       2
    GJ              1             1      1      1       4
    GM       1      4      3      5      6      6      25
  GM/s              1      1      1      1              4
    GU       1      1      2             1      1       6
    GW              3      5      7      3      5      23
    HA              7     19     16     18     21      81
    HB              1      7      9      6      4      27
   HC8       1      1      1      1      1      1       6
    HI              1             1      1      1       4
    HK                            1      1      1       3
    HP                                   1              1
    HS                            2                     2
    HZ                                   1              1
     I              7     18     21     18     19      83
    IS              1      2      1                     4
   IT9                     2      1      2      2       7
    J3                            1      2      1       4
    J8              1      1      1      1              4
    JA              2      7     16     15      9      49
    JT                            1                     1
    JY                     1                            1
     K       1      4     10     10      4      4      33
   KH2                                          1       1
   KH6                     1      2      1      1       5
    KL                     1             1      1       3
   KP2              1      1      1      2              5
   KP4       1                    3      1      1       6
    LA       1      3      5      5      4     11      29
    LU                            5      6     13      24
    LX              1      2      1      2      1       7
    LY              7      9     11      7      6      40
    LZ              4     12     11     11     11      49
    OA                                          1       1
    OE              3      2      7      4      7      23
    OH              4     19     27     20     13      83
   OH0              1      1      1      1      1       5
    OK             20     59     47     60     54     240
    OM             11     16     13     18     12      70
    ON              3      5     11      8     10      37
    OY                            1                     1
    OZ              5      5      6      5     13      34
    P4       1      1      2      2      3      1      10
    PA              3     11     15     18     16      63
   PJ2       1      2      1      2      2      2      10
   PJ7                            1      1              2
    PY              2      5      7      7      7      28
  PY0F                     1                            1
    S5       1     10     17      9     16     11      64
    S9                            1             1       2
    SM              6     18     17     19     23      83
    SP       1     16     42     26     33     27     145
    SU                                   1      1       2
    SV                     2      1      5      4      12
   SV5                     1                            1
   SV9                                          1       1
   T32              1      1             1      1       4
    T7                                          1       1
    T9                     7      3      2      2      14
    TA                     3      1      1              5
    TF                     1      3      2      2       8
    TG              1                    1              2
    TI              1      1      1      1      1       5
    TK              1      1      1             1       4
    TU                            1      1              2
    UA             14     52     44     44     17     171
   UA2              1      1      1      2      1       6
   UA9                     8     33     15      3      59
    UK                            1      1              2
    UN                     5      3      7             15
    UR             16     47     13     39      8     123
    V2              1      1      2             1       5
    V3                                          1       1
    V4              1      1      1      1      1       5
    V5                            1                     1
    VE       5     21     30     23     18      9     106
    VK                     5      4             1      10
   VP5       1      1      1      1      1      1       6
   VP8                            1                     1
 VP8/h                            1                     1
   VP9                     1                            1
    VR                     1      2                     3
    VU                            1                     1
    XE                     2      3      1      2       8
    YL              4      3      5      2      3      17
    YN                            1      1      1       3
    YO              4      8      7      6      3      28
    YU              6     21     19     18     12      76
    YV              1             1      3      1       6
    Z3              1      2             5      2      10
    ZA              1      2      1      1      1       6
   ZD8                            1      1              2
    ZF              1      1      1      1      1       5
    ZL                     2      2      2      2       8
    ZS                     2      2      1      2       7

                   ARRL Sweepstakes Contest, CW

Call: AK1W
Operator(s): K5ZD
Station: K5ZD

Class: Single Op HP
QTH: WMA
Operating Time (hrs): 24
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  QSOs
------------
  160:    0
   80:  119
   40:  474
   20:  516
   15:  123
   10:   83
------------
Total: 1315  Sections = 79  Total Score = 207,770

Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club

Comments

Used the new club call just for fun. Wanted to see if there would be less requests for section repeats if I used a call in the proper call area. It was better‚ but still a lot of them. Too many ‘West’ sections (WMA‚ WPA‚ WTX‚ WWA)!

Missed NT – never heard one. Worked two or more of everything else except PR and PAC!

Contest started out even slower than normal. Just kept plugging and ended the first night just a little behind the usual total. Sunday wasn’t great‚ but consistent. Took an hour off when the flare hit. Figured things would improve toward the end of the contest‚ and they did.

Now 27 years in a row with more than 1K QSOs in SS CW. I love this contest!
Especially enjoy working those guys with old checks and the swinging bug fists.
Less of them every year…

Operating note for the day. If you are really weak‚ don’t send leading zeroes on your serial number.

The story in numbers below.

Rates

 Hour      80      40      20      15      10     Total     Cumm    OffTime

D1-2100Z    -       -     54/25   20/15    3/2    77/42     77/42  
D1-2200Z    -       -     54/7    12/5    13/2    79/14    156/56  
D1-2300Z    -       -     52/3    20/3      -     72/6     228/62  
D2-0000Z  --+--    1/0    46/7    28/2    --+--   75/9     303/71  
D2-0100Z    -     60/4    28/0      -       -     88/4     391/75  
D2-0200Z  12/0    54/0    10/0      -       -     76/0     467/75  
D2-0300Z  31/3    32/1      -       -       -     63/4     530/79  
D2-0400Z   8/0    66/0      -       -       -     74/0     604/79  
D2-0500Z  15/0    47/0      -       -       -     62/0     666/79  
D2-0600Z  17/0    34/0      -       -       -     51/0     717/79  
D2-0700Z   6/0    44/0      -       -       -     50/0     767/79  
D2-0800Z   8/0     4/0    --+--   --+--   --+--   12/0     779/79     40
D2-0900Z    -       -       -       -       -      0/0     779/79     60
D2-1000Z    -       -       -       -       -      0/0     779/79     60
D2-1100Z   5/0     9/0      -       -       -     14/0     793/79     48
D2-1200Z   4/0    35/0    15/0      -       -     54/0     847/79  
D2-1300Z    -     12/0    35/0      -       -     47/0     894/79  
D2-1400Z    -     11/0    29/0      -       -     40/0     934/79  
D2-1500Z    -      2/0    37/0     8/0      -     47/0     981/79  
D2-1600Z  --+--    1/0    28/0     3/0     3/0    35/0    1016/79  
D2-1700Z    -       -     12/0      -       -     12/0    1028/79     39
D2-1800Z    -       -      6/0      -     23/0    29/0    1057/79     27
D2-1900Z    -      1/0    21/0     2/0    17/0    41/0    1098/79  
D2-2000Z    -      7/0     7/0     2/0     4/0    20/0    1118/79     31
D2-2100Z    -      4/0      -     13/0    20/0    37/0    1155/79  
D2-2200Z    -       -     35/0     9/0      -     44/0    1199/79  
D2-2300Z    -      6/0    27/0     4/0      -     37/0    1236/79  
D3-0000Z  --+--    9/0     9/0     2/0    --+--   20/0    1256/79  
D3-0100Z   6/0    27/0     3/0      -       -     36/0    1292/79     32
D3-0200Z   7/0     8/0     8/0      -       -     23/0    1315/79     23

Total:   119/3   474/5   516/42  123/25   83/4

K5ZD, Single Op All Band, High Power

By Randall A. Thompson, K5ZD
k5zd@contesting.com

This article was published in the November/December 2002 issue of the National Contest Journal.

Summary Sheet

              CQ WORLD WIDE DX CONTEST -- 2001

  Call: K5ZD                     Country:  United States
  Mode: CW                       Category: Single Operator
                                           High Power

      BAND     QSO   QSO PTS  PTS/QSO   ZONES COUNTRIES

      160       27       67     2.48      9      18
       80      181      472     2.61     15      59
       40      928     2499     2.69     32     106
       20     1074     3005     2.80     37     120
       15      860     2446     2.84     32     104
       10      720     2079     2.89     32     103
     ---------------------------------------------------

     Totals   3790    10568     2.79    154     510  =>  7,048,856

   (Above is after log checking.)

Station Description

• Radio 1 – Yeasu FT-1000D + Alpha 76CA
• Radio 2 – Icom IC-765 + Ameritron AL-1200

Tower 1 – 100′ Rohn 45G

• 40-2CD @ 110′
• 205CA @ 100′ / 50′
• 5-el 15 @70′ / 35′
• 80m Inv Vee with top at 95′
• 160m 1/4-wave GP with 4 elevated radials

Tower 2 – 90′ Rohn 25G

• 6-el 10 @90′ with 4/4 @ 60’/30′
• 40m 1/2-wave sloper to west
• 80m 1/4-wave elevated GP with 4 radials
• 160m Inv Vee with top at 88′

Tower 3 – 40′ Rohn 25G

• TH7DXX at 40′

Get Ready…

For me, major contests always begin well before 00Z. Despite winning CQ WW CW in 2000 and setting a new USA record, I knew I had been lucky. I beat K1AR in the log checking process and John made it clear he was ready for a rematch. N2NT, KQ2M, W1KM, and other serious single op competition were all prepared for another run at the record during the peak of the sunspot cycle.

I try to make a major station upgrade each year. When I had the opportunity to purchase two 4-element 10m Cushcraft Yagis and some tower sections from K1SD in March, the target was identified. 10m was an aspect of my station I knew needed improvement.

I erected the tower sections to make a new 30′ tower right at the peak of my hill. A TH7DXX that had been at 90′ was moved to the new tower for primary use as a go-to antenna for the South. The 6-element LTA 10m beam was moved from being fixed on Europe at 20′ to being fully rotary at 90′ where the TH7 had been. The two new 4-element beams were stacked at 30′ and 60′ on the same tower. Now I had a 3 high stack for 10m with some real horsepower at the top.

Another project was to get the 40m beam on its own coax into the shack instead of sharing with 15m. This improved the antenna selection flexibility by allowing 40 and 15 to be used at the same time.

Another station improvement was the addition of a W5XD MK-1100 keyer. This is a wonderful external hardware accessory for WriteLog logging software that does all of the CW keying and audio switching needed for SO2R. Through the use of WriteLog’s excellent two radio support and some keyboard macros, I could do all of the switching without ever having my hands leave the keyboard. A serious effort in SS CW provided all the practice needed to develop my technique. After 20+ years of doing SO2R, this was the most automated system I had ever experienced, and I felt it had definitely improved my SS score.

Get Set…

Over the years I have developed a series of actions that help me prepare for the rigors of a 48-hour single op effort. They include having the station completely set up the weekend before, getting as much sleep as possible during the 6 days leading up to the contest, and trying to relax from the pressures of work.

The station was ready on time but I still had one concern. There was a new source of line noise that had appeared a few weeks before. Rain usually makes it go away, but the month had been particularly dry and no rain was expected before the contest. On Wednesday, the noise was worse than ever with a solid S7 buzz across every band when beaming anywhere from North to West. I called K1AR’s voice mail and left him a recording of the buzzing along with the message that I was out of it if the noise didn’t go away.

The Thanksgiving holiday is both a help and hindrance for contest preparation. My in-laws live about 3 hours away in Woodstock, NY. We drove over to visit them on Wednesday evening. Of course, this meant lots of turkey and football on Thursday, but also a few extra hours of sleep and a late afternoon nap. Friday morning I was able to sleep in a bit more and we drove home Friday afternoon. Since I was asking my wife to return home early so I could do the contest, we stopped at a restaurant and had a large late lunch on Friday. It took forever to get in and out of the mall with all of the shoppers! We finally arrived home about 5PM with the contest just 2 hours away.

I immediately turned on all the equipment and connected the antennas. The bands sounded fair and amazingly the line noise was completely silent. I took this as a good omen and headed off to bed for a short nap of about an hour. Not as much as the 3 hours I would have liked, but that was one of the things lost when we decided to eat out. Took a shower and was sitting at the radio ready to go at 2330Z. Much earlier than normal!

The bands were funny. Not great, but not bad either. Ten was punk, 15 was open a bit, 20 had signals. I decided that 40m was the place to start for the highest rate and found a frequency around 7022. I worked a few people to get warmed up and things were ready.

Go… – Not!

As the clock rolled over, a large Eastern European multi-op station that had been down 1 KHz decided that they wanted to be on the same frequency I was. We engaged in dueling CQs to start the contest – each working just enough guys to stay but neither doing very well. I worked more QSOs on 15m on the second radio than I did calling CQ. After 10 minutes of this, I decided to find another spot and began moving up the band. Another 10 minutes of S&P (search and pounce) go by and still can’t find a hole to call CQ.

This is a moment of panic for a single op. The adrenalin is pumping. You have spent months preparing for the contest and spent the last week totally focused on getting off to a big start. Now things start to slip away.

I switched to 15m to chase multipliers and get my head clear. Then down to 20m for more tuning and calling. Amazingly, I had managed to make 47 QSOs and a bunch of multipliers in the first 30 minutes. 20m had some very loud signals from Europe and Asia so I decided to find a frequency and see if I could get something going. I landed on 14020 and started a nice steady run. The frequency was quiet enough that I could use the second radio on 40m to chase multipliers. It was a pleasant surprise when K4ZW/JT called in with a very good signal on 20m at 0051Z. The second radio shows QSOs logged all the way up to 7070! No wonder I couldn’t find a clear frequency on that band.

I ended the first hour with 109 QSOs and 106 multipliers. I had my rate sheet from 2000 printed out and saw that I was doing OK, even with all the moving around. The next 2 hours continued with CQing on 20m and second radio S&P on 40. At 0245Z I was able to start a run on 40m.

You often hear about sports teams that arrive at a big event saying all the right things, yet just seem to be flat. I now know what this feels like. Despite being fully prepared, I was surprisingly devoid of emotion and passion when the contest began. I assumed that I would get into it once things got started, but instead my attitude was getting worse. I kept going more on habit than desire. This is very disconcerting when you know there is still a long way to go.

At 03Z I decided to jump from 40m to 160m. I had noticed in the weeks before the contest that 160 was opening earlier rather than at European sunrise. The decision was a good one as I worked 5 zones and 10 countries (many from Europe) during the next 15 minutes. Happy with this, I jumped back to CQing on 20m for more rate. When 5H1X (K1XM op) called in at 0340Z, I already had 26 zones and 60 countries on the band! The next 30 minutes was a careful search up 80m working multipliers. I finally found a frequency to call CQ up at 3545, which became my home for the next 45 minutes (70 QSOs)! A few second radio QSOs on 40m helped fill in some more multipliers.

The 05Z hour was a mix between 40 and 80m. I would run on one and listen on the other, then switch. By 06Z, I had 19 zones and 64 countries on 40m. The 06Z hour was mostly running on 7045. At this point I was keeping up with the rate from the previous year, but I knew it was being done through aggressive S&P and band agility. Conditions were clearly not as good as the previous year, and they seemed to be getting worse rather than better.

During the 07Z hour, I noticed that the main tuning knob on the FT1000 was getting harder and harder to turn. It finally just froze up and would not turn at all, even under great force. I kept CQing and working guys with the IC765 while I tried to figure out what was wrong. I managed to find the necessary Allen wrench to get the tuning knob off, but couldn’t see anything. Finally decided that I couldn’t fix it or waste any more time.

I recalled that WriteLog had a feature to tune the radio using the mouse wheel. I read the help file and found how to make it work. This allowed me to tune the frequency of the FT1000 but the tuning rate was too fast. Back to the help file revealed the INI file command to change the tuning rate and I slowed it down to 100Hz steps. It wasn’t great, but at least I could tune stations in and work them.

At this point, my attitude was really at a low point. The rate was slowing down and the radio problems were distracting. I had only made 25 QSOs during the 07Z hour and figured that I had to be falling behind.

I made no QSOs from 0801Z until 0813Z. This was probably a mental health break with a bathroom and food run. 20m was starting to open so I established a slow steady run on 14015 for the rest of the hour. There were a few second radio QSOs on 40m, which pushed the multiplier totals to 24 zones and 82 countries on that band.

The 09Z hour continued the run on 14015 while also tuning the other bands. Worked 8P9Z, P40Q, and ZV8O on 160m. Got FG/N4CD and XQ1ZW on 80m.

At 10Z, the wheels came off. Just 17 search and pounce QSOs in the next 40 minutes. There were some good multipliers, but the bands were broken. I was still bothered by the radio tuning knob problems, the lack of signals on 20m, and a general disappointment in how things were going. With the sun coming up outside, and what should have been one of the highest rate hours, I made the decision to quit the contest.

With my last QSO logged at 1037Z, I lay down on the floor of the radio room and went to sleep.

Restart

Something woke me up about 1125Z. I remember thinking that I had arranged my family’s life to do this contest, so I should get up and keep going. Even if I wasn’t going to win, I could at least enjoy the contest and see what I could wring out of the bands.

I came back on the air at 1129Z and worked a C6A, ZL, and a JA on 40m. Then found YZ1AU on 15m but he was the only signal. Conditions stunk, so I just did a systematic S&P across all bands for the next 40 minutes. After the contest, I would learn that I had given up no QSOs to K1AR during this period. It was pure luck that I went to sleep during the absolute worst period of conditions!

The break and decision to quit had removed the pressure and expectations of being competitive from my mind. I was now free to just enjoy the fun of contesting. There is probably a lesson in this.

The 12Z hour began to see conditions return. I was able to establish a run on 14022 and use the second radio to work some loud stations on 15m. 15 was still not really open and it took several calls to get each station.

At 1310Z I went to 10m and started working loud Caribbean and South American stations. I did two complete S&P passes across the entire width of 10m and managed to also work some Europeans. 15m must not have been too good at the time either since at 1345Z I returned CQing on 14008.

It is kind of hard to imagine just how disturbed conditions were at this point. The band seemed to randomly open to small pockets of the world and then close again just as fast. I spent the entire 14Z hour calling CQ on 20m, but actually working more stations S&P using the second radio on 10 and 15m. It wasn’t until 1530Z that I stopped CQing on 14008 and decided to S&P full time on 10m.

With conditions so poor, and no guarantee they would be better the next day, I was keeping a keen eye on the higher bands and trying to make sure I got as many multipliers as possible. As I tuned around on 10m, I started hearing German stations coming in on the direct path with reasonable signals. I decided to call CQ and was rewarded with a nice run. It was perfect band for SO2R. The 10m frequency was perfectly clear with a steady rate, while leaving plenty of time and concentration available for calling stations on 15m. In the 16Z hour, I had 101 QSOs on 10m and 34 more on 15! The bands were returning to normal!

This burst of rate fully reengaged me into the contest. I really enjoy contesting and find it rather addictive once I get started. I was now thinking like a serious competitor and operating like one.

With the FT1000 tuning knob problem, each CQing band change was a dance. First I would find and establish a frequency using the IC765. Then I would bring the FT1000 to that frequency using computer command. Finally, I would switch radios. It wasn’t a big problem, but required a little bit of extra effort each time.

The 17Z hour was mostly on 10m with the jump to CQing on 15m occurring at 1744Z. I was fresh meat on a hot band and the rate took off. One hour later, at 1855Z, I made the jump to 20m and the roll continued. 19Z had 93 QSOs on 20m with 11 second-radio QSOs on 15 including VQ9X and 5R8HD. 20Z was more of the same with 77 contacts on 20 and 13 more on 15.

At 2138Z I jumped down to 40m to see if I could find any long path multipliers. Worked a very loud JA3YBK and JI2KVW, but that was it. Turned the beam to Europe and set up shop on 7035 at 2153Z. This would begin an amazing run that may have been the deciding point in the contest.

After the first 24 hours I had 1797/122/406 for about 2.7 Million points. My best hope was to get to 6 Million. No new record this year.

I stayed on 7035 calling CQ until 0433Z. During this period I worked over 330 stations on 40m while also working nearly 100 QSOs on the second radio – many of them multipliers. Some of the goodies that called in on 40 during this period include 3B8/LA7MFA, T95O, 4X/OK1EE/P, ZS6DX, ZF2LA, KL7FH, and 5H1X. It was 3V8BB firing up just a few cycles away that ended the run so I worked him for 40m country 98.

The first half of the 05Z hour was spent CQing on 3546 while chasing multipliers on 160m. It was back to 7031 at 0539Z – my new home for the next 4+ hours until 0953Z! Wow, another 260+ QSOs on 40 plus a few more multipliers on the other bands with the second radio. This late 40m opening did not happen the first night so conditions were obviously returning to normal. I was also starting to think that I might be making a competitive score.

I took a short 10-minute break during the 10Z hour. At 1042Z I established a 20-minute run of Europeans on 14032. A little search and pounce across 20m to start the 11Z hour and I was back to CQing on 14009 at 1111Z.

When I finally listened to 15m at 1150Z, I discovered that the band was wide open! I immediately moved to 21004 and the rate exploded with 130 QSOs in the next 60 minutes. I repeated the discovery on 10m at 1245Z. The band was packed with signals. My main thought at this point was to run as fast as possible and try not to fall too far behind K1AR and KQ2M. There have been too many contests where I could keep up during the slow times, but lost due to a few high rate hours on the high bands.

Conditions were great, but up and down. At 1400Z, I moved back to 15m and established a run on 21002. This was a great frequency for the next 3 hours (312 QSOs) and let me do some second radio work on 10m (57 more QSOs). When 5H1X called in on 15m, I moved him to 28213 for a double multiplier. At 17Z it was back to running on 10m. Something I have never done before, this movement back and forth between 10 and 15 may have helped me work more stations than if I had stayed on one band for the entire time.

The rate was slowing down during the 18Z hour and I was making a lot of band changes. The SO2R functionality of WriteLog was being handled completely by my subconscious. It is a good thing the software records the frequency of the QSO, because I was changing bands so much that I sometimes couldn’t remember which band I was on. (Sleep deprivation may have had something to do with that…) By now the FT1000 tuning knob was beginning to turn although not freely, but at least I could do some tuning with it.

The 19Z hour was spent mostly CQing on 15m with second radio action on 10 and 20. At 2030Z I moved the run radio to 14016. Signals from Europe were very loud and the band was crowded. I went looking for a quieter spot and ended all the way up at 14089. The rate was pretty good although there was occasional competition from various digital mode stations. Finally one of them ran me off and I was on the move again. The FT1000 main tuning knob was about 70% free by this time so it was possible to tune down the band. I was looking in vain for an OH0 but found VP9/W6PH and 4U1ITU instead. Ended up CQing on 14036.

Sleep deprivation starts to introduce some interesting thoughts around this time. I recall thinking each station that called was revealing some aspect of their personality in how they called. It made for some very bizarre conversations with myself…

At 2126Z I had one of the more memorable QSOs of the contest. There were several stations calling and one of them had that hollow sound that only comes from being far away. I heard “ER” and asked for a repeat. SP3HC was calling at the same time and he responded as well as the “ER”. It took some maneuvering but I finally had the “ER” station calling in the clear and it was 3W2ER! Cool multiplier (country 116) and a surprisingly good signal. 3W2ER later sent me a recording of his side of the QSO and he was not hearing any of the European callers, just me. So I end up sounding like a lid since it took 3 tries to get his call.

Twenty minutes later HB0/DL1RWB calls in for country 117. I stay on 14036 all the way to the end of the contest (the last 2 hours 45 minutes on that one frequency!). During the same time, 10m opens to Japan as well as I have ever heard it. Gives me lots of easy second radio QSOs to chase. On 20, I am called by JY5HX, and then have back-to-back QSOs a few minutes later with 9V1YC and FR5FD to get to 120 countries (a new personal record for one band in a single op effort).

Final score on the computer shows 3832/158/512 for 7,378,710 points.

After the contest I go up to 3830 to see how the competition has done. I am amazed when K1AR and KQ2M check in with numbers that are below mine. For a contest that I had assumed was lost, there was new hope.

Notes

It really was a tale of two contests. The first 14 hours were really frustrating and well below the excellent conditions we had become used to from the two previous years. Things started to recover and by Sunday at 12Z, we were experiencing the full joy that is CQ WW.

I believe the key component to my success in the contest was aggressive and continuous use of two radios. WriteLog and the W5XD keyer represent the state of the art in SO2R technology available today. By my count, I had 374 second radio QSOs in the first 24 hours and another 261 in the second 24 hours (I define second radio QSO as one that is made away from the band that I am actively CQing on). That is a total of 635 “extra” QSOs. Sure, some of them I would have worked later anyway, but the margin of difference over K1AR is the difference in the number of second radio QSOs we each made. You can see the number of second radio QSOs in the rate sheet below.

The FT1000 tuning knob problem was gone when I tried to use the radio a few days later. I can only assume that a bearing was broken and had jammed when it heated up during use early in the contest. As it cooled down, it returned to a position where it was not jamming the shaft mechanism. The problem has not reoccurred since.

It amazes me every year how big this contest has become. Reading 3830 score reports after the contest always reveals a number of calls with big QSO totals that were never heard all weekend! A look at the breakdown by country shows a lot of holes in the multiplier chasing that could be easily filled. Always room for improvement next year!

WriteLog showed a total operating time of 47:07. No wonder I slept for more than 12 hours after the contest!

Continent Statistics

                160M    80M    40M    20M    15M    10M   Total      %
          EU      11    134    790    871    733    611    3150    82.2
          OC       0      0      8     10      2      7      27     0.7
          SA       4      9     14     33     26     25     111     2.9
          AF       0      2     15     22     17     15      71     1.9
          NA      12     38     96     72     46     38     302     7.9
          AS       0      1     20     74     46     29     170     4.4

Rate Sheet

 Hour     160M     80M     40M     20M     15M     10M    Total     Cumm    radio2
D1-0000Z  -----   -----   50/40   44/40   15/26   -----  109/106   109/106    28
D1-0100Z    -       -     37/12   68/13     -       -    105/25    214/131    37
D1-0200Z    -       -     44/10   60/24     -       -    104/34    318/165    21
D1-0300Z  15/15   17/19    8/4    27/9     4/6      -     71/53    389/218     8
D1-0400Z    -     74/22   16/9      -       -       -     90/31    479/249    16
D1-0500Z    -     30/7    57/7      -       -       -     87/14    566/263    17
D1-0600Z    -     16/6    61/6      -       -       -     77/12    643/275    16
D1-0700Z    -      4/3    19/11    2/1      -       -     25/15    668/290     3
D1-0800Z   1/0    -----    7/7    53/2    -----   -----   61/9     729/299     5
D1-0900Z   3/6     5/4     2/1    50/4      -       -     60/15    789/314    10
D1-1000Z   1/1     4/5     4/2     8/1      -       -     17/9     806/323     3
D1-1100Z    -      2/1     3/2    12/3     3/4      -     20/10    826/333     3
D1-1200Z    -       -       -     46/2    17/14     -     63/16    889/349    17
D1-1300Z    -       -       -     21/1      -     37/37   58/38    947/387     3
D1-1400Z    -       -       -     26/0    25/11   13/9    64/20   1011/407    38
D1-1500Z    -       -       -     18/0     8/3    42/18   68/21   1079/428    16
D1-1600Z  -----   -----   -----   -----   34/6   101/5   135/11   1214/439    34
D1-1700Z    -       -       -       -     51/10   59/6   110/16   1324/455    22
D1-1800Z    -       -       -     10/2    47/5    20/10   77/17   1401/472    20
D1-1900Z    -       -       -     93/6    11/6      -    104/12   1505/484    11
D1-2000Z    -       -       -     77/4    13/8      -     90/12   1595/496    13
D1-2100Z    -       -     10/0    37/2     3/3     4/5    54/10   1649/506     6
D1-2200Z    -       -     51/4      -      3/3    10/8    64/15   1713/521    13
D1-2300Z    -       -     70/1     9/5     5/1      -     84/7    1797/528    14  374
D2-0000Z  -----   -----   36/0    20/7     2/0    -----   58/7    1855/535    22
D2-0100Z    -       -     48/1     2/1      -       -     50/2    1905/537     2
D2-0200Z   3/1      -     52/5    18/7      -       -     73/13   1978/550    21
D2-0300Z    -      4/3    46/3     6/3     1/1      -     57/10   2035/560    11
D2-0400Z   1/1     4/1    33/3     2/1      -       -     40/6    2075/566     3
D2-0500Z   1/1    19/2    18/1     5/1      -       -     43/5    2118/571     6
D2-0600Z    -      1/1    77/3     1/0      -       -     79/4    2197/575     2
D2-0700Z   1/1     2/1    93/0      -       -       -     96/2    2293/577     3
D2-0800Z  -----    1/0    59/0     2/0    -----   -----   62/0    2355/577     3
D2-0900Z   1/1      -     28/4     5/2      -       -     34/7    2389/584     6
D2-1000Z    -      1/1    11/3    16/0      -       -     28/4    2417/588     5
D2-1100Z    -       -      3/0    45/1    16/1      -     64/2    2481/590     3
D2-1200Z    -       -       -       -    114/4    44/9   158/13   2639/603     3
D2-1300Z    -       -       -       -      5/1   141/6   146/7    2785/610     5
D2-1400Z    -       -       -       -    110/5    27/2   137/7    2922/617    23
D2-1500Z    -       -       -       -    116/3    12/1   128/4    3050/621    12
D2-1600Z  -----   -----   -----   -----   96/4    25/4   121/8    3171/629    22
D2-1700Z    -       -       -       -     11/0   108/1   119/1    3290/630    11
D2-1800Z    -       -       -       -     27/4    49/2    76/6    3366/636    20
D2-1900Z    -       -       -     11/5    76/4     7/5    94/14   3460/650    18
D2-2000Z    -       -       -     58/2    32/2      -     90/4    3550/654     9
D2-2100Z    -       -       -     84/4     5/0     1/2    90/6    3640/660     6
D2-2200Z    -       -       -     73/0    18/2     9/2   100/4    3740/664    27
D2-2300Z    -       -       -     74/3     2/0    16/3    92/6    3832/670    18  261
Total:    27/27  184/76  943/139 1083/156 870/137 725/135                     635

Breakdown by Country

          160M    80M    40M    20M    15M    10M   Total
   3B8                     1      1      1      1       4
   3D2                     1                            1
    3V                     1      1      1              3
    3W                            1                     1
    4J                                          1       1
    4L                            2                     2
  4U1I                     1      1      1              3
  4U1V                     1      1                     2
    4X                     1      6      1      1       9
    5A                                   1              1
    5B              1      3      2      4      1      11
    5H                     1      1      1      1       4
    5N                            1                     1
    5R                                   1              1
    5X                            1                     1
    6Y              1      1      1      1      1       5
    8P       1      2      1      1      1      2       8
    9A              2     13     14      6     12      47
    9G                                          1       1
    9H              1      2      1      1      1       6
    9K                            1                     1
   9M6                            2                     2
    9V                            1                     1
    A4                     2                            2
    A6                     1      1                     2
    BY                            1                     1
    C6       1      2      2      1      3      1      10
    CE              1      1      1      1      2       6
   CE9                            1      1              2
    CM              1      5      2      1      2      11
    CN              1      2      2      2      1       8
    CT              1      3      6      3      5      18
   CT3                     1      3      1      2       7
    CU                     1      1      2      1       5
    CX                            1      2      1       4
    DL       2     21    125    132    118    109     507
    EA              3     14     33     22     20      92
   EA6                     1      2      2      2       7
   EA8              1      3      4      4      4      16
   EA9                     1      1      1              3
    EI              1      1      2      5      2      11
    EK                                   1              1
    ER                     2      2      1      1       6
    ES              1      2      4      4      2      13
    EU              3      3      6      5      5      22
    EX                            1                     1
    EZ                                   1              1
     F       1      5     39     41     34     26     146
    FG              1      1      1      1              4
    FM                            1             1       2
    FR                            1             1       2
    FY                            1                     1
     G       2      5     51     48     43     30     179
    GI                     4      2      2      1       9
    GJ                            1      1      1       3
    GM              1      6      5      4      3      19
  GM/s                     1      1             1       3
    GU                     2      2      2      3       9
    GW       1      3      6      4      4      6      24
    HA       1      6     26     25     22     24     104
    HB              1     11     12      9      8      41
   HB0                            1                     1
    HC                            1      1              2
   HC8       1      1      1      1      1      1       6
    HI                     1             3      1       5
    HK              1             1                     2
 HK0/a                     1      1      1      1       4
    HL                            1                     1
    HP                                          2       2
    HS                            1      1              2
    HZ                                          1       1
     I              5     28     34     33     33     133
    IS                     2      2      1      1       6
   IT9                     1      2                     3
    J3              1      1      1      1      1       5
    J8              1      1      1                     3
    JA                     7     18     15     20      60
    JT                            1                     1
    JY                     1      1             1       3
     K       1      5     39     32      7      5      89
   KH2                                          2       2
   KH6                     2             2      3       7
    KL                     1             1      1       3
   KP2              1      1      1      1      2       6
   KP4              1      4      2      3      3      13
    LA              1     13      4      9     10      37
    LU                     1      9      6      8      24
    LX                     2      2      3      3      10
    LY              4     15     19     16     10      64
    LZ              1      8      9      8     13      39
    OA                     1      2      2      1       6
    OE       1      1      8      8      6      8      32
    OH              5     11     35     24     16      91
   OH0                     2             2      2       6
    OK       1     19     83     68     61     58     290
    OM              2     29     22     16     14      83
    ON       1      4      9     11     12      4      41
    OY                                   1      1       2
    OZ              1      9     11      5      6      32
    P4       1      2      1      2      2      2      10
    PA              1      8     11     13      6      39
   PJ2       1      1      2      2             2       8
    PY       1             5      9      8      6      29
  PY0F              1      1      1      1      1       5
    S5       1      9     33     22     20     21     106
    SM              3     17     35     17     11      83
    SP              9     49     46     44     26     174
    SU                     1                            1
    SV                     1      5      3      1      10
   SV5                                   1              1
    T9                     4      4      4      2      14
    TA                                   1              1
    TF                     1      1      2      1       5
    TG                                          1       1
    TI              2      2      2      2      1       9
    TK                     1      1                     2
    UA              2     41     83     55     35     216
   UA2              1      4      3      1      3      12
   UA9                     3     28     16      2      49
    UN                     1      4      3      2      10
    UR              5     49     35     42     18     149
    V2              1      1                    1       3
    V4              1      1      1      1      1       5
    VE       8     14     26     19     14      8      89
    VK                     1      4             1       6
   VP5              1      2      2      2      1       8
   VP9       1      1      1      1                     4
   VQ9                            1      1      1       3
    VU                            4      1              5
    XE                     3      2      2      1       8
    XT                     1      1      1      1       4
    YB                            1                     1
    YL              2     14      9     11     10      46
    YO                    10     10      7     10      37
    YU              4     22     29     24     22     101
    YV              2      1      1      1      1       6
    Z3              1      1      3      1      3       9
   ZC4                     1             2              3
   ZD8                     1      1      1      1       4
   ZD9                            1                     1
    ZF              2      1             1      1       5
   ZK2                     1                            1
    ZL                     3      3             1       7
    ZS                     2      2      1      1       6

                     ARRL Sweepstakes, CW
                    
Call: K5ZD

Class: SO HP
QTH: WMA
Operating Time (hrs): 24
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band     QSOs
-------------------------------
  160:       
   80:     74
   40:    453
   20:    355
   15:    364
   10:     82
-------------------------------
Total:   1328 x     80  =  212,480

Comments

Great start, but just ran out of new people to talk to. Wish I had noticed that there was going to be a World Series game 7 on Sunday night so I could have saved more off time. The bands were empty once the game started!

We have to thank the QRP guys for saving SS CW. They make the contest go.
When you see how great some of the QRP signals are, maybe we should just eliminate the high power category?!

Overall operating quality was excellent. Most guys seemed to know what PR? or PREC? meant. No real frequency fights and with so many bands open, it was always easy to find a place to CQ.

Surprising to see 40m completely dead by 10AM Sunday. Normally it rocks all day. But 20m sounded like 40 with loud stations from only 200 miles away.

This was my 25th consecutive SS CW with more than 1000 QSOs. Still my favorite contest!

Rates

QSO/Sec by hour and band

 Hour      80      40      20      15      10     Total     Cumm    OffTime

D1-2100Z    -       -       -     86/34   18/6   104/40    104/40  
D1-2200Z    -       -       -     65/9    20/1    85/10    189/50  
D1-2300Z    -       -       -     56/3    19/4    75/7     264/57  
D2-0000Z  --+--   --+--   47/4    22/3     1/1    70/8     334/65  
D2-0100Z    -      3/0    51/2    20/2      -     74/4     408/69  
D2-0200Z    -     50/3    22/1      -       -     72/4     480/73  
D2-0300Z    -     59/2    15/2      -       -     74/4     554/77  
D2-0400Z   7/0    57/1     4/0      -       -     68/1     622/78  
D2-0500Z  14/0    55/0      -       -       -     69/0     691/78  
D2-0600Z  12/0    46/0      -       -       -     58/0     749/78  
D2-0700Z   9/0    48/0      -       -       -     57/0     806/78  
D2-0800Z   7/0    13/0    --+--   --+--   --+--   20/0     826/78     25
D2-0900Z    -       -       -       -       -      0/0     826/78     60
D2-1000Z    -       -       -       -       -      0/0     826/78     60
D2-1100Z    -       -       -       -       -      0/0     826/78     60
D2-1200Z   9/0    22/0     3/0      -       -     34/0     860/78     21
D2-1300Z    -     32/0    20/0      -       -     52/0     912/78  
D2-1400Z    -     13/1    25/0      -       -     38/1     950/79  
D2-1500Z    -     12/0    26/0      -       -     38/0     988/79  
D2-1600Z  --+--   --+--   34/0     7/0    --+--   41/0    1029/79  
D2-1700Z    -       -     11/0    28/1      -     39/1    1068/80  
D2-1800Z    -       -      7/0     9/0      -     16/0    1084/80     39
D2-1900Z    -       -     16/0     4/0    14/0    34/0    1118/80      2
D2-2000Z    -       -     20/0    11/0     4/0    35/0    1153/80  
D2-2100Z    -       -      1/0    14/0     4/0    19/0    1172/80     35
D2-2200Z    -     19/0      -     26/0     2/0    47/0    1219/80  
D2-2300Z    -      6/0    15/0    14/0      -     35/0    1254/80  
D3-0000Z   1/0     3/0    12/0    --+--   --+--   16/0    1270/80     31
D3-0100Z   5/0     9/0     3/0     2/0      -     19/0    1289/80     31
D3-0200Z  10/0     6/0    23/0      -       -     39/0    1328/80  

Total:    74/0   453/7   355/9   364/52   82/12 

K5ZD (W4PA opr.), Single Op All Band, High Power

                ARRL INTERNATIONAL DX CONTEST -- 2001


      Call:      K5ZD
      Category:  Single Operator
      Power:     High Power
      Band:      All Band
      Mode:      CW 
      Section:   MA

      BAND     QSO    QSO PTS PTS/Q COUNTRIES

      160       84      252   3.0       40
       80      328      984   3.0       60
       40      949     2847   3.0       81
       20     1192     3576   3.0      103
       15      964     2892   3.0       93
       10     1004     3012   3.0       87
     --------------------------------------

     Totals   4521    13563   3.0      464  =   6,284,880

Comments

Pre-contest:   Flew up to Hartford from Knoxville early Friday morning, got a rental car from National and made the 90 mile drive to Randy’s house.  Not as convenient as flying into Providence, but US Airways was running an R/T special Knoxville-Hartford and I actually got the plane ticket and a 3 day car rental cheaper than flying R/T to Providence.  This also eliminated the need for Randy to R/T me to the airport twice.   About 2000Z we started looking at the station, made sure TR Log was working (Randy uses WriteLog) and hooking a few things up.  The antennas were pretty straightforward and all the switching was stuff I’d used before.    Rigs: #1 my Omni-VI Plus with Randy’s Ameritron AL-1200.  Rig #2 Randy’s FT1000D and Alpha 76.

2120Z Friday:  Nap time.  I have had 8 to 10 hours a night sleep for two weeks previous except for the night the CW Sprint ran, including 9 hours Thursday night.  Randy agrees to wake me 30 minutes before the contest.  I am planning to go 48 straight, if I can make it.  I make a mental note to check how I feel after 24 hours, as I usually start running out of gas after dark on Saturday night.

0000Z:  After looking over last years rate sheets and some querying of Randy about low band strategy, I am off to the races.  The Omni-VI Plus is parked on 7017 to kick it off and it goes with a bang, with 23 QSO’s in the log in the first 10 minutes.

0004Z: First second radio QSO is on 20 meters with MD/DL5AXX.

0100Z: First hour is 134 Q’s, including 8 on 20m on the second radio.  I keep in mind that while 20 is open good and is easy pickings, these are Q’s that can be had later.  I move the second radio to 80 meters while continuing to run on 7019.6 and work second radio QSO’s on 20, 80, and 160 in the next couple of hours.

0220Z:  I am watching last year’s rate sheet and notice a drop off in 40 meter QSO’s – ­ the same thing is now happening this year as I vacuum up the available people to work.  It’s also in the middle of the night in Europe.  3539 is open and I start CQing with immediate, but slow, results.  Boy are the Europeans ever loud in W1 on 80!  Working them from Tennessee is a head-in-hands, volume-maxed experience trying to separate weak CW from band noise.  Up here it’s nice signals from S5 to well over S9.  Wow!

0315Z:  Still running them on 80, but try 15 meters “just in case” on the second radio and work a very weak T32RD.  Only other signal is KC1XX.  Immediately go from 15 to 160 on the second radio and make 6 QSO’s for 6 mults in 7 minutes while continuing to run on 80 meters.  This is definitely not Tennessee, and to boot, I am beating absolutely everyone out on every European I call on 160.

0344Z:  80 is slowing after an hour and a half and I go back to 40 to start running again.  The band is absolutely packed with loud signals and I get kicked off of a couple of frequencies before finding a spot open at 7040.7.  28 QSOs in the next 15 minutes.

0400-0500Z:  Continuing to alternate runs between 80 and 40 and pick off multipliers on 20 and 160.  I keep checking 15 but hear nothing.   There seem to be quite a few UAØ and UA9’s to work on 20 that are not weak and watery.  This tells me that there is solid gray line and I am betting that a good European sunrise opening on 20 is going to happen.

0505Z:  In our pre-contest chat, Randy told me if 160 was not noisy to try CQing there prior to EU sunrise. I decide this is the moment and work 19 Europeans on 160 in the next 22 minutes, then at 0527 go back to 40 meters to kick off some of the EU sunrise.  C4A calls me on 40.  32 Q’s on 40m in the next 20 minutes.

0557Z:  OD5/OK1MU calls in on 40.

0600Z-0640Z:  Continuing to run on 40 meters while picking off mults on 80 and 160 on the second radio. I am hearing good Russian signals on 20 but am not bothering to work them, as I figure the opening is going to continue for a bit and 40 is going fairly well.  Finally, at 0640 I decide the rate is slowing enough on 40 that going to CQ on 20 may be worth a shot.  I was wrong.  I worked 4 Q’s in the next 8 minutes and went back to 40.  Even though 20 was good, most of the DX was sticking to 40 and I go back down there and find a new run frequency.

0700-0800Z:  a 92 hour between running on 40, working mults on 80 and picking off some random EU CQers on 20.  80 is rapidly dying as the sun comes up in Europe and I’m watching the greyline on the GEOCLOCK computer.   Last 80m EU QSO of the night will be GM3YTS at 0821Z.

0840Z:  40 is now down to western Europe and the signals are getting stronger on 20.  I expected they were going to be louder a couple of hours earlier but that was not to be the case.   It’s definitely time to get up there to CQ and with a twist of the knob the Omni-VI Plus is on 14.047.   I put out a CQ and am immediately rewarded with a roaring pileup of Europeans.  It gets to the point where I have the RIT +/-300 Hz just to separate them.   I am amazed. There are 6, 8, or 10 callers after every QRZ? and I fear the rate is slowing because I simply can’t pick whole callsigns out of the roar every time.   I shut off the audio on the second radio and work 167 Europeans in the next 60 minutes.

0950Z:  The rate is incredible ­ but I am going to be sorry if I don’t try to pick off some low band multipliers before the high band openings start shortly.  C6, KH6, and P4 are quickly in the log on 40 as the roaring pileup on 20 continues unabated.

0940-1040Z:  The second radio is abandoned as the roar continues for a 143 hour from 0940-1040.  I have moved the second radio to 15, shut off the CW filters and am watching the S-meter for an indication that it’s time to jump from 20 to 15.  EU is there, but not numerous or loud enough to yet make the switch.

1040-1057Z:  38 Q’s in 17 minutes for a 134 rate. This is not good enough to stay on 20 and I immediately jump to 15 meters.  The next hour on 15m will be 165 QSO’s.

1158Z:  GM3POI is first in the log on 28 MHz as I have now moved the Omni-VI Plus to 10 while continuing to run Europe with the FT1000D on 15.  I am again trying to assess at what moment I can crank the rate even higher by jumping from 15 to 10.

1200Z:  Turns out that moment was exactly two minutes later as I quickly find an open spot at 28.040, make one CQ and OH6RX answers.  The 15m audio is shut off as I focus on running Europe with the Omni-VI on 10 meters.

1210Z:  FR5FD on Reunion Island calls in on 10.

1200-1500Z:  Hours of 153, 120, and 106 follow using both radios.  Anytime no one answers a CQ ­ I am immediately tuning for someone on the second radio. 10 is dying rapidly going into the 1500 hour and at 1509Z I go back to CQing on 15.  I think that the slowdown on 10 is more related to there being so much activity that the callers are spread thinner.  At 1541Z I’m back on 10 meters again CQing with the rate having picked back up.

~1500Z:  Somewhere during the runs, Randy has poked his head into the radio room to tell me he is leaving to drive over to K1EA to operate at the K1AR Multi/2 and will be back sometime before the end of the contest.   I remember mumbling something in response and then hearing the car pulling out of the garage.

1540-1640Z: 115 hour between CQing on 10 and picking off stations on the second radio on 15 and 20.

1721Z:  The rate has begun to trickle off on 10 and my final CQ of the morning there will be at 1720Z.

1720Z-2025Z:  132 hour on 15 with some Q’s on 10m off

the second radio.   The rate is softening a bit, with

121 on 15m from 1820-1925, when I decide to drop down to 20m with the Omni-VI Plus.  The rate hangs in there with a 119 hour on 20 from 1925-2025Z.

2100Z:  From looking at the previous year’s rate sheet, I can tell that shortly I am going to have to drop down to 40.  The rate on 20 isn’t going too well and has slipped below 100/hr by this point despite good signal levels.

2110Z:  Having decided to drop to 40 meters, I take a quick break to get up and eat something.  I skipped dinner on Friday night and have only minimally ate anything to this point.  A couple of bagels, a banana, two cartons of yogurt and a big glass of apple juice and I am back in front of the radio.  This will be the first of only two 5 minute breaks that I will take over the course of the 48 hour contest.

2116-2302Z:  7019.7 is open and PA5WT immediately answers my CQ there at 2116Z.    Nearly two hours of CQing on 7019 while picking off mults on 10, 15, and 20 ensues.  At the end of this 1 hr and 45 minute stretch, a total of 169 more QSO’s including 16 multipliers.  9V1YC calls in on 40 at 2300Z and I try to move him to 10 but he doesn’t want to budge. Signals on 10 from Asia are starting to come up over the last hour or so and at 2302Z I decide to try running JA’s on 10 meters.

2312Z:  The JA run is not working out on 10.  10 QSO’s in 10 minutes followed by a three minute gap with no answers.  Ugh.  Back to 40 meters with the CQ machine.

0000Z: Still CQing on 40 while picking off QSO’s on 10, 15 and 20 with the second radio.  This is assessment time.  I decided I was going to try and go 48 straight if it looked like things were going well at the halfway point and I was physically feeling good.  The line score was 2710 QSO’s and 2.93 million points.  A little quick mental calculating gave me a score prediction in the mid to high 5 million range.

This would possibly be good enough to beat the single op high power record of 5.5 million.  I usually start getting tired around 0200 or 0300Z Sunday but tonight I am feeling good and decide I am going to tough it out and go all 48.  I would hate to lose a shot at breaking the record because I wanted a two hour nap.

2355Z-0104Z: 40 meters has started to tail off. Running out of fresh Europeans and the casual ops in central and eastern Europe are in bed in the 2 am-4 am local stretch there.  Change bands to 20 for CQing to pick up some of the Siberians and am rewarded with several great mults calling in right off the bat:  3W, 9M2, HS, BV, 9V1YC, DU and YB all answer the 20 meter CQ as well as a couple other garden variety mults like KH6 and VK.

0106Z: Flip from 20 down to 80 and start CQing on 3524.  Work 60 Europeans on 3524 in the next 46 minutes while continuing to pick off Asia on 20 meters.  Move the run frequency to 40 at 0152Z.  40 isn’t going that well and after only 15 QSO’s in 29 minutes there I’m back CQing on 80 again at 0221Z.

0221Z-0327Z:  This was a mixed bag of alternating CQing on 40 and 80 and picking off multipliers on 20, 40, 80, and 160 during the same stretch.  Trying to keep the rate up anyway possible but this is usually a fairly slow time anyway.  Europe is in bed, I’ve worked a lot guys already, etc.  I keep peeking at 15 meters but hear nothing interesting to work.

0327Z:  The Russians over the pole are coming in nicely again on 20 with a minimal amount of flutter. GEOCLOCK is showing greyline to eastern Russia and western Siberia.  Good time for some CQing, likely. The band is relatively uncrowded and I find an open spot in the “power alley” at 14.004.  This quickly turns into a solid mini-run of 67 UA’s and JA’s in the next 45 minutes.   I’m continuing to pick off mults and Q’s on 40 and 80 on the second radio.

0417Z:  Keeping in mind Randy’s missive about occasionally CQing on 160, I call for 7 minutes and work 4 QSO’s, and grab WP2Z and LZ2JE for two quick mults before QSYing the run radio to 80 meters.  80 doesn’t work out too well in the next few minutes and I go back to CQing on 20 at 0434Z.  I continue to alternate until 0512Z between CQing on 20 and 40 and picking off stuff on 80 with the opposite rig.

~0500Z:  I am getting tired.  We’re 29 hours into the contest and a couple of hours past the point where I usually am running out of steam.  I am absolutely determined I am going to make it all 48.  I catch myself a couple of times staring at the radios or the computer while doing absolutely nothing and realize I am slipping somewhat.  A fast run into the kitchen to make coffee ensues.   I feel pretty good, and I am not hallucinating like I was during the CQ WW at W4AN ­ I take this as a positive sign.

0539Z:  Still hopscotch CQing among 20, 40, and 80 just trying to keep mini-runs going while multiplier hunting on the second radio.  I find J38A, operated by my friend Bill K4LTA on 40 and move him to 20 for another mult.

0547Z:  It looks like the European sunrise opening that never really materialized on 20 at this hour yesterday is picking up some and I have put the Omni-VI Plus back up there to run some Russians and Europeans.  The next hour will be 80 QSO’s.

0700Z:  40 doesn’t sound too great ­ it appears the early risers in Europe are hearing that 20 is somewhat open and are choosing to go there rather than 40.  I am picking off some Q’s on the low bands, watching for the possibility of going back to 40 to CQ.

0716Z:  Hopefully we’re going to see another great 20 meter opening as happened around 0830Z yesterday, and with that thought in mind I have dropped back down to

40 to CQ.  I’ll stay on 40 until 0847Z, putting 106 QSO’s in the log in the next 91 minutes.

0847Z:  I’ve watching for the breakout moment on 20 and it’s been wide open now for about 15 or 20 minutes to Europe.  I elected to stick with 40 until the last possible moment as I am sure the runs on 20 are really going to be rolling after the 167 hour the previous day from 0840-0940.

~0930Z:  4:30 AM local time Sunday.  Randy has arrived home from K1EA/K1AR to get some sleep.   He comes in to check on me.  I am ­TIRED—but I manage a weak smile, say something incomprehensible to myself or him (not sure which), remember leaning on the desk and shaking my head.  I think I may have exchanged a few sentences with him but I am beyond comprehending anything but CW at this point.

1000Z:  The rate has picked up again on 20 as the roar of Europeans that happened at this time the previous night has resumed.  I work a 102 hour there from 0900Z-1000Z and then an 83 hour from 1000Z-1100Z.

1100Z:  It’s getting ugly inside my head.  I am having trouble copying callsigns now because of fatigue and am second-guessing my decision to have skipped a two-hour nap earlier in the evening.  I wonder if the decreased ability to copy callsigns now would have been overcome if I had taken the nap and lost 100 QSO’s doing so.   Would I have gained the 100 back with the nap?   I realize this is a stupid discussion to be having with myself.  I’ve skipped the nap because I wanted to go all 48, I certainly am not going to take a nap during the morning European openings and I push the thought out of mind.  But I am feeling ROUGH.

1120Z: FM/F2JD calls in on 20 and I quickly move him through 15 and 10 meters also.

1126Z:  Of 10, 15, 20, and 40, I am lowest on QSO totals on 15 and make the switch as soon as the band feels practical.  As usual, it’s already packed and I find myself way up at 21.056 ­ but the small pileup and the run starts immediately and I elect to stick it out up there.   I am instantly rewarded with a 123 hour.

1318Z:  I have ran through 100 more QSO’s on 15 in the previous 52 minutes, a 116 rate.  Not quite fast enough, and I bail to jump up to 10 meters.  Put out one CQ, RU6LWT is in the log and the rate meter flys over to the right.  A 117 hour from 1318-1418 on 10 while picking off random CQers on 15 on the other radio.

1500Z:  HZ1HZ had called me on 20 late Saturday and I set up a sked for 21.100 at 1500Z.  He doesn’t show ­ if he did it would have been hard for me to tell as two Europeans were CQing on top of each other on 21.100 at that exact moment.

1507Z:  I’ve been on 10 almost two hours and the callers are starting to dry up.  A quick pass across the band finds signals all the way past 28.200!   I decide to call CQ on 15 while S&Ping on 10 – I realize the phenomenon of band-open-let’s-casually-run-the-W’s has started and I am sure I can find a bunch of new QSO’s by dropping the CQ radio down to 15 and scanning across 10.  I start off at 28.183 with OK1AXB and slowly start my way down the band while CQing on 15. It takes about 25 minutes to run down the entire band and at 1543Z I go back to CQing on 10.

~1530Z:  Randy is awake and has come into the radio room to see how I am doing radio-wise and mental-health-wise.  He is more alert than I am to the fact that I have eaten virtually nothing since Friday at lunch and have drank only coffee and one glass of apple juice.   He delivers a full pot of coffee, a pitcher of ice water and a couple of items from my food stash before exiting to go back to the K1AR multi-op.

1638Z:  I am a spacing out.  I am doing things like staring at the GEOCLOCK monitor, forgetting to press F1 to call CQ, listening to people on the S&P radio run W’s and turning knobs on the radio for no apparent reason.  I have to take a break.  I get up for 5 minutes, walk around some, look out the shack windows into the yard and eat some yogurt.  This will be only the second break I take and I am back on the air at 1646Z.

1800Z:  The rate is not too great but not out of line for Sunday afternoon, with a 68 hour from 1700-1800 from CQing on 10 while picking off CQers on 15 and 20. At 1829Z, HP1AC calls in with 4 watts on 15 and I quickly move him through 10 and 20 meters as well.

1911Z:  The rate is hovering around 75 an hour, calling CQ on 15 and S&Ping on 10 and 20.  I am really tired at this point and am leaning heavily on the desk to prop myself up.   Confusion has set in as well as I can’t send CW with the paddle or even remember the callsign I am using.  I am sending “K5MA” “K5ZD” “W4PA” and who knows what else.  I decide to stop using the paddle and only send with the keyboard.  I have also made a large sign that reads K5ZD 5NN MA.

2006Z:  FR5FD calls in on 15 and I quickly move him to 20.

2033Z:  EA8/OK1DJG calls in on 15 and I quickly move him to 40.  It’s broad daylight at 3:30 PM but he still has about an S4 signal on 40.

2108Z:  The high bands have really slacked off and I have nothing to lose by going to 40 for some fresh QSO’s.  FR5FD is the first one in the log CQing on 40. 23 QSO’s in the next 24 minutes before returning to 20 meters.  I end up high in the band at 14.079 but am getting a slow steady stream of callers.   It is about this time that I am trying to remember what I am doing ­ I am wondering why these people are calling me and what “TEST TEST K5ZD” is.   I know it’s a radio contest but I don’t know WHY.  This goes on with me slowly getting worse as the hour goes on.

2212Z:  Total confusion.  I can’t concentrate on the 2nd radio anymore and I really can’t judge what band I should be on.  I hear lots of signals on 15, 20, and 40 but I don’t know what to do.  I am almost incoherent and I go into a mental freeze that lasts for a few minutes.  There is a gap from 2212 to 2220Z in the log as I sit in the chair, dazed.   No QSO’s, no CQing, nothing as I try to figure out what I am doing.

2220Z:  After looking at last year’s rate sheet, I decide to try just one radio on 40 meters and see if I can do anything.  The band, naturally is packed at I find a slot at 7020 and start running Europeans.

~2245Z:  W6XR is 200 Hz below me and is ticked off that I am close by.  Of course, with the Omni-VI Plus and a pair of 250 Hz filters I hear nothing but band noise.  No adjacent signal, no clicking and popping like you do with some other “top of the line” HF rigs.  He tells me to QSY a few times and then just comes on top of me and deliberately calls CQ right on top of me.  For some reason, I find this so funny that I am now shaking with laughter as I continue to run Europe through the QRM for the next few minutes.   On a break, I send WHY? to him and he sends CUZ UR A LID back.  I am cracking up and still CQing.  He eventually slides back down below me.

2330Z:  Sked arranged on Saturday with C4A for 2330Z Sunday on 3.565 comes off without a hitch.  I am missing some “easy” 20 meter multipliers but am still incapable of looking for them on the second radio in my mental state.  I strike a novel approach by shutting off the CW filters on the second radio and try to listen for guys either sending fast or a pileup.   I work TA and T48K quickly.  I need P4 and HC8.  I am answering a call on 40 when out of a dream I hear “brrazzzzznnnnttt” on 20 meters which I translate as “P49V” even though I am not paying to attention to radio #2.   Amazingly enough, that was exactly what it was.  I work him, and then P40R, and finally snag HC8N with one minute to go.

Post-contest:  4527/464 for 6,291,840 claimed score.

Good enough to top the single op, all band high power record by 800k.  What I don’t know yet is if I’m the only one to have made it to that point.  Monitoring 3830 after the contest, KQ2M reports a raw score of 6.5 million.  I’m ahead 100 QSO’s but down by 21 multipliers, mostly on 40 and 160 meters. Darn. Still, #2 will have to be good enough.  Took a shower, ate some food with Randy and his family and hit the sack for a 10 hour snooze.

Post-post-contest:  Got back to Tennessee on Monday night.   US Airways broke my Ten-Tec 963 switching power supply for the Omni-VI Plus on the way home by bashing the back cover in.  Oh well.  Back to work Tuesday morning.  Wait till next year!

A big THANKS for having me to Randy K5ZD and his family.

73

Scott Robbins, W4PA

Rate Sheet

BREAKDOWN QSO/mults  K5ZD (W4PA op.) ARRL INTERNATIONAL DX CONTEST  Single Operator

HOUR      160      80       40       20       15       10    HR TOT  CUM TOT  

   0    .....    .....   126/30     8/8     .....    .....   134/38  134/38 
   1    10/8      4/4     74/10     4/4       .        .      92/26  226/64 
   2      .      54/20    28/3     16/9       .        .      98/32  324/96 
   3     7/6     43/7     20/0     11/6      1/1       .      82/20  406/116
   4    15/8     48/7      8/2      9/0       .        .      80/17  486/133
   5    22/3     18/5     49/3       .        .        .      89/11  575/144
   6      .      12/4     87/2      7/5       .        .     106/11  681/155
   7     5/3      5/0     75/1      8/5       .        .      93/9   774/164
   8     1/1      3/2     40/2     59/11    .....    .....   103/16  877/180
   9      .        .       3/3    155/8       .        .     158/11 1035/191
  10     1/1       .       3/1    132/6      5/5       .     141/13 1176/204
  11      .        .        .       2/0    164/31     1/1    167/32 1343/236
  12      .        .        .        .       3/1    151/38   154/39 1497/275
  13      .        .        .        .      22/1    111/8    133/9  1630/284
  14      .        .        .        .      16/4    105/2    121/6  1751/290
  15      .        .        .        .      53/3     54/1    107/4  1858/294
  16    .....    .....    .....     5/4     10/2    110/4    125/10 1983/304
  17      .        .        .        .      86/3     39/2    125/5  2108/309
  18      .        .        .        .     106/2     15/9    121/11 2229/320
  19      .        .        .      60/2     46/2      9/4    115/8  2344/328
  20      .        .        .     105/5      9/5      1/0    115/10 2459/338
  21      .        .      62/1     13/1      7/7      1/0     83/9  2542/347
  22      .        .      72/3       .       4/1     20/4     96/8  2638/355
  23      .        .      26/2     31/3      2/1     12/0     71/6  2709/361
   0     1/0      2/1      5/1     40/5     20/6      1/1     69/14 2778/375
   1      .      62/2      4/0     13/1       .        .      79/3  2857/378
   2     5/3     25/0     18/1      1/0       .        .      49/4  2906/382
   3      .      16/0      5/1     51/6       .        .      72/7  2978/389
   4     8/4     16/2      3/0     51/0       .        .      78/6  3056/395
   5     1/0     11/2     21/2     28/1       .        .      61/5  3117/400
   6     5/1      5/1      7/1     62/0       .        .      79/3  3196/403
   7     1/0      1/0     36/0     25/0       .        .      63/0  3259/403
   8     2/2      2/2     61/3     20/0     .....    .....    85/7  3344/410
   9      .        .       2/1     99/2       .        .     101/3  3445/413
  10      .        .       7/3     75/0       .        .      82/3  3527/416
  11      .        .        .      32/3     66/1      3/1    101/5  3628/421
  12      .        .        .        .     113/6     16/2    129/8  3757/429
  13      .        .        .       1/1     26/2     79/1    106/4  3863/433
  14      .        .        .        .       6/1     97/4    103/5  3966/438
  15      .        .        .        .      33/1     39/1     72/2  4038/440
  16    .....    .....    .....     2/0      4/1     68/0     74/1  4112/441
  17      .        .        .       4/0     18/1     46/0     68/1  4180/442
  18      .        .        .       1/1     55/1     15/1     71/3  4251/445
  19      .        .        .      11/2     49/1      4/1     64/4  4315/449
  20      .        .       1/1     11/1     28/1      4/2     44/5  4359/454
  21      .        .      18/1     27/0      9/1       .      54/2  4413/456
  22      .        .      40/0      7/0       .       3/0     50/0  4463/456
  23      .       1/1     48/3      5/3      3/1       .      57/8  4520/464
DAY1    61/30   187/49   673/63   625/77   534/69   629/73    ..... 2709/361
DAY2    23/10   141/11   276/18   566/26   430/24   375/14      .   1811/103
TOT     84/40   328/60   949/81 1191/103   964/93  1004/87      .   4520/464


                   CQ WORLD WIDE DX CONTEST  2000

      Call: K5ZD                     Country:  United States (W1)
      Mode: CW                       Category: Single Operator

      BAND     QSO   QSO PTS  PTS/QSO   ZONES COUNTRIES


      160      105      273     2.60     14      40
       80      396     1119     2.82     21      74
       40      981     2852     2.91     29     104
       20      997     2914     2.92     33     106
       15      860     2535     2.95     33     104
       10     1195     3529     2.95     33     107
     ---------------------------------------------------

     Totals   4534    13222     2.92    163     535  =>  9,228,956

Equipment and Antennas

Station 1 - Yaesu FT-1000D + Alpha 76CA
Station 2 - Icom IC-765 + Ameritron AL1200 Logging software WriteLog by W5XD

Tower 1 - 100' Rohn 45G
160m elevated GP
80m inverted vee
40-2CD at 110'
205CA at 100'/50' in upper/lower/both stack 
155CA at 66'/33' in upper/lower/both stack

Tower 2 - 90' Rohn 25G
TH7DXX at 90' rotary
TH7DXX at 45' fixed NE
6-el 10m at 20' fixed NE
All of above can be combined through WX0B StackMatch.
40m sloper.
80m elevated GP
160m shunt fed tower.

500' Beverage to NE

Preparation

For every serious competitor, the contest begins well before 00Z.  I have been very involved in a software start-up for the past 4 years and didn’t realize how much I had put station maintenance on the back burner until I started to try to catch up.  It was even worse to realize that this would be my first 48-hour single op in more than 2 years.

Repairs included:

– Replace the top 15m beam so that both antennas of the stack would be the same.

It feels like it made a small improvement.

– My 160m ground plane had been taken down by some tree cutting so put it back together.  Added 4 more radials for a total of 8.  This was a result of reading the ON4UN low band book where he suggested 8 or more radials will equalize the current flowing in each radial.

– Sent the IC-765 off for repair.  It was having phase noise problems due to some aging capacitors.

– Fixed the speed knob on the Kansas City Keyer.  A small thing but it removed a long-time annoyance.

– Last-minute experiment with feeding my 6-el 10m Yagi at 20′ with a TH7DXX at 90′ using a WX0B StackMatch.  I am sure it is not perfect, but it did seem to fill in some of the holes and my 10m rates were better than ever before at this station.

The only thing that didn’t get fixed is the indicator on the 20/40m rotator.

I could tell when it turned through north and then could count one thousand one, one thousand two, to estimate where it was pointing.  Does anyone know a source of spare parts or service for Create RC5 rotators?

Other than that, I had everything ready to go the weekend before the contest.  What a great feeling!

I am a believer that you must bank as much sleep as possible prior to the contest.  A trip to visit the in-laws for Thanksgiving day was just what was needed.  I slept in as long as I wanted on both Thursday and Friday morning.

The only cost was a 3-hour drive back home on Friday.  I was so well rested that I couldn’t really make myself sleep more than a few minutes at a time on Friday afternoon.

Between football games on TV, I took a few minutes to go back and read comments about the contest on the 3830 and cq-contest e-mail reflector archives.  This is a great way to get some idea of what conditions were and what kind of experiences people had.  The two most helpful to me from 1999 were by K3ZO and W4AN.  I couldn’t find anything from W2SC who had operated my place last year.  I was sure I would find a rate sheet when I got home, but I couldn’t.  That left me flying totally blind as far as expected bands, times, and rates.  Kind of like being a guest op at my own station.

The Contest

After leaving incredibly good conditions when I last listened on Wednesday, it was a real disappointment to turn on the radio at 22Z Friday and hear lots of flutter and poor signals from Europe.  The propagation forecasts were full of warnings and I was sure the worst had happened.  The only band that was open to Europe without flutter was 80m!

I tuned everything up, wrote down all the settings, made sure the computer was ready to go, and then went off for dinner.  I returned at 2345Z and started listening to see where to start.

The bands still didn’t sound great.  15m was open to Europe, so I figured there must be some ionosphere left.  I chose to start on 20m with the thought that this is the one time of the weekend when there would be the greatest activity there.  I began running on 14007 while tuning 15m with the second radio.

I was immediately in the groove.  It was almost like the Sweepstakes CW contest two weeks earlier had never ended.  I worked 104 stations on the CQ frequency while working 27 on 15m on the second radio.  I felt I was off to a great start!  Mostly Europeans on 20 and all continents on 15m.

The second hour continued the 20m run with some goodies such as ZC4DW, HS0ZCY, VU2PAI, and many UA9 calling in.  I switched the second rig to 40m and started looking for a place to go.  I made the jump to 7050 at 0130Z and then started using the second radio to chase multipliers on 20.  The rate on 40 wasn’t good so I search and pounced down the band until I finally found a spot at 7022.  In the early hours of a contest like this, I was desperate to find a CQing frequency.  Any time you are S&P on the main radio, a little voice is constantly saying, “You’re losing.”

During the third hour, I decided to do a quick check of 160m.  I had noticed during CQ WW Phone that the band opened best well before European sunrise.  At 0316Z I worked 9A7R for my first QSO on 160.  Since signals on 160 tend to be weak and difficult, I stopped CQing on 40m and concentrated completely on one radio.  After quick QSOs with DF0HQ, S50U, and RA6AX, I knew that the Europeans were hearing much better than they normally do.  This was a band that needed to be mined for multipliers while it was open.  At this point in the sunspot cycle, anything I could do here was an unexpected bonus.  I stayed for 22 minutes before heading up to 80.

It seemed like all the Europeans I called on 80m were hearing me well, so I quickly found a run frequency at 3539.  This enabled the second radio to come back into play and I spent time S&P for the big signals on 40.  The 04Z hour was a continuation of the same.  80m is not one of my strengths, so as long as I could make some QSOs there I was happy to stay.

At 05Z I started CQing on 7038 and used the second radio to tune 80m.  This switching of bands is a great way to sweep for multipliers without giving up the rate.  At 0502Z, ZS4TX called me on 40m well past his sunrise.  It was my only ZS/38 on 40m all weekend.

At 0527Z I finally made it back to 160m.  Signals weren’t loud, but Europeans were everywhere on the band.  Best catches were LX/DL4SDX and OH0Z.  At 0554Z I started CQing on 1813 and was able to get a small run going.  No doubt thanks to the European packet cluster.  This run produced a number of multipliers that I would not have obtained otherwise.  It was also great fun!

I stayed on 160m until 0639Z.  Even with some good multipliers on 40, I knew I was probably doing too much 160m DXing and possibly hurting my score.  But it is a place where I have some signal and receiving advantage over my single op competitors so I wanted to maximize it while the band was open.  I was immediately CQing on 3546 with some good rate.  The low bands were so quiet that it was almost like running on 20m.

At 0700Z I found a very loud TZ6DX calling CQ on 40m.  The only time I heard him all weekend.  I finally made the move to 40m at 0726Z.  Again, the radios reversed and I was able to seek out 80m for multipliers while getting answers on 40.  This continued throughout the 08Z hour.  I had noticed that 20m was still open (I should probably not have left it for so long but couldn’t afford to miss the low band multipliers).  Moved EA6/DL9GFB from 40 to 20 at 0853Z.  I got up from the radio for 2 minutes or so to make a quick bathroom break during this hour.  It was my first time up from the chair since the contest started.

At 0912Z I started a nice run on 14032.  This gave me time to cycle through 40m for multipliers when I wouldn’t get an answer on 20m.  Very happy to work RA0CG and VK3TZ on 40m.  The 20m run fizzled at 1020Z and we were fully into the predawn doldrums.  I concentrated most of my energy on one radio.

On 40m, I was happy to snag KL7RA, a few JAs, TF3IRA, A35RK, and OX/N6ZZ.

Spent the last 15 minutes of the hour on 15m chasing very loud zone 33 stations and assorted southern Europeans.  Probably should have concentrated on the LF bands, but it was good to enjoy some peace and quiet and get a lot of these guys out of the way.

At 1101Z I took a quick listen on 160m and was surprised to hear a very clear signal send 5NNT1.  I called and immediately got through.  I think it is the first time I have ever worked Alaska on 160m from here.  The only problem was that it took another 3 minutes to get his call.  If I have a complaint about packet, it is that it allows many DX stations to avoid having to give their calls as often as they might otherwise.  This brief joy of 160 DXing was tempered by the fact that the sun was already coming up and I was not in the place I should have been.  I checked 80m quickly, worked KH7R for a double mult, then went to 14019 and started running Europe.

I continued to dial around 80m when the rate on 20 allowed.  Worked C6A/WA3WSJ for a new multiplier.  I had heard a few JAs but none that were workable.  At 1129Z I clearly heard JH7PKU call CQ so I dumped my call in just for fun.  I was amazed when he immediately replied and I had a very good double multiplier in the log!  That finished my interest in the low bands and I quickly moved the second radio to 15m.

15m was wide open and I was afraid that I was behind the MUF.  My first CQ on 21027 at 1147Z was rewarded with RW9DX and I was off to the races.  I worked 35 stations in the next 13 minutes.

With 15m so good, I moved the second radio to 10m and realized that it was already going full blast.  I didn’t even take time to do a quick scan for multipliers before starting to look for a frequency.  In retrospect, this may have been a small error, but rate is king at this time of the day.  I wanted a frequency that was up in the band and wouldn’t get a lot of pressure or competition from others.  At 1218Z I started up on 28040 and this was my home for the next 5 hours.

The rates were better than anything I have experienced before.  Stations just kept coming and coming.  Often there would be enough calling that it was impossible to get a full call.  This added some extra time as stations had to send their call several times and I had to repeat it for confirmation.  Even so, it was the best run I have ever had.  While 10m has been this station’s weakness, I knew I was doing well enough that I couldn’t be falling too far behind.

I kept trying to get time on the second radio where possible.  Occasionally there would be a minute or so without an answer, and I could devote some time to listening and calling stations on 15m.

The big morning hours are incredibly fun and exciting.  But they require a different skill than two radio multiplier chasing.  As the last 100 rate meter hung around the 150/hour mark, I kept thinking this must be what it is like at P40E or EA8BH.  I couldn’t even imagine the concentration and stamina those guys must have to handle big rates for every hour of the contest.  I was tired after just a few!

During the 15Z hour I was getting more comfortable with handling the rate and started to spend more time tuning on the second radio.  At the K1KI multi-single last year, I remembered that SU9ZZ liked to operate very high in the band.  I set out to see if I could find him.  Found OD5/OK1MU on 21112 for a new mult, and then SU9ZZ on 21129.  If not for my experience last year at K1KI, I would probably have never made a point of looking this high.  As an added bonus, worked 4Z5RW on 21132 a minute later.

Toward the end of the 16Z hour, 10m started to slow down and a look at Geoclock showed much of Europe entering darkness.  In his comments about the 1999 contest, K3ZO had said something about needing to run Europe on 15m even while 10m was still open.  I took his advice to heart and made the jump to 21031 at 1704Z.

15m brought the rate meter back up and gave me a chance to tune through 10m. Europe was mostly gone, and I was only able to work a bunch of Caribbean and Central America multipliers.  I knew this meant there would be pressure to work the European contest expeditions on Sunday morning if I was to have any kind of 10m multiplier.

At 1748Z I made QSO number 2000.  The line score was 2000/111/367 for 2.7 Meg.  That is an average rate of 112 QSOs/hour to this point.  With 10m so good, I could only imagine what kind of numbers K1AR and KQ2M were at.

At 1902Z, VP9/NC8V called me on 15m.  I asked him to move to 14104 thinking it would be an easy QSO.  Never heard him, but while calling CQ there and waiting, I was called by IK4EWX.  This alerted me to how open 20m was.  I immediately slid down to 14021 and called CQ.

This is a great time period for us in New England.  Much of the rest of the USA is still up on the high bands, yet conditions to Europe on 20m are excellent for us.  I established a very clear frequency and had a great two hour run.  I probably would have missed much of this if not for the attempt to move the VP9.  Each time I do this contest I am fooled by how early this opening occurs.  The secret to spotting the timing is to watch darkness as it passes over Europe.

At 2140Z I took my second break.  This one was long enough to hit both the bathroom and the refrigerator.  I returned to the radio and moved to 40m.  I knew I was just a bit late for 40m LP to Japan, but was hoping I might find a VK6 or HS0.  I never heard any LP signals either day, but I was rewarded with CX5BW, LX/DL4SDX, UP0L, and 9G5AA.  At 2155Z I set up shop on 7033.

This frequency would be home base for the next 4 and a half hours!

It was also the source of some consternation.  I began to notice that the keyboard was not always responding to what I was typing.  It would occasionally supply extra characters or start erasing ones I had entered.

The rate was too good to stop, but I was worried I had found some kind of software bug.  While I tried to avoid panic, and run guys, I started trying to troubleshoot.  I logged on paper while I rebooted the computer.  No difference.  I then realized that the problem had started when I went to 40.

The amplifier and the computer are right next to each other on the table, so I began to suspect RF.  I looked over at the amp and saw it was drawing a little extra grid current.  I retouched the tuning and suddenly the keyboard problems went away.  Whew, that was a relief!

At 2239Z I worked JA3XOG for my first JA on 10m.  JA signals were very loud but there were only a few of them calling CQ.  With such a good frequency and rate on 40m, I knew it was not good strategy to try to run Japan on 10.

I settled for going up and down the band calling stations.  This had the side benefit of uncovering a number of interesting multipliers including T88JA, RA0FN, VK5GN, HL1XP, and NH0S.  Probably should have also checked 15 during that two hour period, but it was too easy to stay where I was.

At the end of 24 hours, I was in exciting new territory.  The line score was

2706/129/415 for 4.3Meg.  My usual score prediction method at this point is to double the score and add 10 percent.  This gave a number of 9.4 Meg which seemed unbelievable.  Even just doubling the score was going to break W4AN’s 1999 record of 8.2M.  Yikes!  My goal and motivation were now clearly set. This is a key component for getting through the second half of the contest.

At 0028Z I moved the second radio to 15m.  Still running on 7033, which was being amazingly quiet and productive.  Worked 9M8YY and some JAs, then DU3NXE.  V8A always had the most unruly and messy pileups.  Dumped my call in just for grins and was surprised when he came right back.  Those small victories always provide much needed adrenalin shots.

Moved CT1AOZ from 40 to 80m at 0115Z for a new country.  Why is Portugal so easy to work in some contests and not in others?  Went back to running on 7033 and tuning 15m.  At 0153Z I found BW2000 on 15m for a double multiplier.  That has to get my vote for callsign of the contest.

At 02Z I took a scan of 20m with the second rig.  The band was very open to Asia and the Pacific.  Worked JT1R who had a booming signal.  Only time I heard him all weekend.  Found A35RK for another good one.  About 0230Z the wheels kind of came off of everything.  I decided to try calling CQ on 20m so I could tune across 40m.  That didn’t do much, so put all my energy into making a sweep across 80m.

30 minutes later (0330Z) I was back on 20m CQing toward Japan.  The pace was rather sedate, but it gave me a chance to do some second radio work on 80m.

At this point I was starting to struggle a bit with staying awake and anything that could produce QSOs and keep my mind engaged was welcome.

At 04Z I took a listen to 160m.  Worked PI4ZLD, OM7M, V26K and ZB2X in a 20 minute period.  Obviously got a bit into DXing there.  May also have taken a quick break.  Settled in on 3547 at 0427Z and started a good run.  It was mostly Russian and Ukraine stations with excellent signals right at their sunrise.  There were no second radio QSOs this hour, which indicates the difficulty I was having fighting sleep deprivation.  Passed the 3000 QSO mark at 0443Z.

I happily continued running on 3547 for the 05Z hour as well.  Checked 160 just before 06Z and worked KH6CC and OZ1LO.  Wasted another 10 minutes looking for more before heading back to 80.  Spent the whole 06Z hour on 3548 running mostly Western Europe.

I needed to do something to wake up.  I visited the refrigerator for 2 Diet Dr Peppers.  This was my first hit of caffeine for the weekend.  It did seem to energize me a bit.  To get my mind back, I spent the first half of the 07Z hour tuning.  I scanned across 80m, then went to 160m and chased G stations.

Reestablished CQing on 7032 around 0730Z where I would stay until 10Z.  Kept the second radio on 160 because the band was good and I needed easy things like GW, GJ, GD, GI, EI, etc.  None of them showed but did work OY9JD for a new multiplier.

At 0840Z I worked TF3DX and TF8SM on 80m with good signals.  Kept looking for OX/N6ZZ but no luck.  EI8IC gave me country #71 on 80m at 0855Z.  Worked TF3IRA on 80m at 0911Z.  Around 0930Z I moved the second radio to 20m and started working Europeans in between 40m CQs.

At 10Z I took a listen to 160 just in case any of the Caribbean guys showed up.  Worked KV4FZ who had not been able to hear me earlier in the evening. Unsuccessfully called TI5N.  Worked a second zone 3 station for insurance.

Then went to 80m and worked what I could.  When I found TI5N there, I told him I was hearing him well on 160.  We went back down and made the QSO.

To celebrate, I found a frequency on 20m and started CQing again (14035 at 1033Z).  I was missing a lot of easy multipliers on 40 so spent some time with the second radio there.  Success in finding P40E, ZL3CW, ZK1VVV, YJ0V, VE2IM (zone 2), and VK9NS.  VK9NS was a great catch because I heard him work someone else first.  I sent “Up Up” and then moved up 1 and called him.  He came right back with a good signal.  A great way to end the 10Z hour!

The run on 14035 was continuing and I spent most of the 11Z hour there.  The rate was steady and much better than I would have expected for a second day.

I used the second radio to tune 15m and work random QSOs.  I did take some quick listens on 160 and 80.  Heard some good JA signals on 80, but they weren’t hearing me.  Reminded myself that I did not want to get caught DXing when I should be running with the MUF.

Tried scanning 15m for multipliers while running on 20.  Found EX/UA3AGS for a good one.  Before I had covered even half of the band, it was obvious that it was time to move.  Landed on 21037 at 1157Z and the rate took off.  I took advantage of the opportunity to tune across 20m and did find a few QSOs and multiplier (OH0Z), but the rate was too good on 15m to do this job well.

At 1220Z I decided it was time to make the jump to 10m.  Found a clear frequency and tried a few CQs with no answer.  Then a DL just started calling CQ like I wasn’t there.  This was momentarily puzzling, until I looked over and noticed the amplifier band switch was still on 20m.  Had to find another frequency and start over again.

At 1226Z I settled in on 28016, just 1 kHz up from VP5GN.  The run for the next hour was strange.  I would get a pile-up of 3-8 stations calling at one time.  Enough so that it was difficult or impossible to get anything but a letter or two.  I would then sort this out, make a QSO, and find one or maybe two stations had stayed around.  I would work them, and then not have anything for 5 or 6 CQs.  It was almost like the rate was coming in waves.  Overall, the rate was OK, but it could have been much better if the answers had been more evenly distributed (this is not a complaint!).

Had the second radio going on 15m.  Found ZC4ZM for a new one.  When ES9C called me on 10m, I suspected they were multi-multi so I asked him what their 15m frequency was.  Two minutes later I worked them on 21117.  Found OX/N6ZZ on 21099 at 1358Z.  Three minutes later I heard A45XR for the first time all weekend.  Worked him on 21092 and then almost immediately found HC8N on 21090 for band number six.  Was starting to worry I might miss them on a band.

Noticed late in the 14Z hour that 10m (I was still running on 28016) was starting to get quiet.  15m was way behind in QSO count and I knew I needed to do some tuning across 10m for multipliers.  At 1444Z I jumped to 21048.

The band was open very deep and I was working from Europe all the way into UA9.

I started tuning up 10m as I had time.  Found 3V8BB, A61AJ, and FY5KE in between others.  Even on 15m the rate was coming in waves.  I would work 10 stations in a row on 15m, and then 3 on 10m that I was calling.  Funny how that works out sometimes.  Took me 45 minutes to cover 40 kHz on 10m and find ZF2NT.  At 1542Z, VK4EMM called me on 15m for a double multiplier.  Not sure what path he was coming in from, but assume long path.  It took another 30 minutes to go 30 kHz and find PJ2T on 28087.  This is mostly due to the steady rate on 15m.  Another 30 minutes to get to 9H0A and PY0FZ on 10m.  I have now taken almost 2 hours to cover  120 kHz on 10m.  If the rate had been any less on 15m, I might have been better to put both ears on the job for a one time scan through 10m.  I don’t think I ever tuned higher than 28145 all weekend.  That decision is all part of the game.

I passed 4000 QSOs at 1620Z.  I had never broken 4000 QSOs in one weekend before, so this was a great personal milestone.  By this time I had the W4AN record in sight and was doing the math on what kind of QSO total might be possible at the current rate.  I was dreaming big at this point and actually thinking that I might be competitive with K1AR and KQ2M.

Around 1645Z, the rate on 15m seems to dry up.  W1WEF stops by and asks if we had a flare.  At the time, I had not even noticed except that the rate was slowing (seemed normal for a Sunday) and that the band was a bit quieter (I thought this was just my good luck with the frequency).  As I listened around, it did seem like something funny was going on.  From 1648 to 1656, I made 1 QSO.

I took a quick bathroom break and tried think of what a flare might mean based on where my score was at the time.  I had a lot of QSOs on 10m, so I was happy with that.  I knew I just needed to fill in on 15, 20 and 40.  I assumed the MUF would dive and it would be a 20m slugfest to the end.

When I sat down at the radio, I switched to 20m and listened.  There was not a single signal on the band.  Wow.  But there were still signals on 10m – some of them loud.  I decided that I had come this far, I had to continue even if it meant only working stations at a very slow rate.  I started at the bottom of 10m and worked each new station I could find.

Since some signals on 10m were loud and I knew I should be running, I selected a quiet 28050 and started calling CQ. On the second radio, I could hear K1AR and KQ2M CQing on 15m, so I wasn’t sure what the right strategy was. My hunch was that most people would be on 10m trying to figure out what happened and so this was the place to be.

It worked out well for me.  I was called by new multipliers C6AKP, CT1DJE, OX/N6ZZ, VQ9GB (double mult), and ZS0E (double mult).  I stayed on 28050 until 18Z when it seemed like time to try 15m.  As I listened on 15m, signals were incredibly strong.  OK5W was more than 40db over S9!  The flare seemed to have removed some of the activity from the band, so it was easy to find a spot at 21027.

I used the opportunity of running on 15m to do another scan of 10m with the second radio.  With less activity, it was easier to find new stations to work.  Multipliers found on 10m included VP2EST, YV7QP, HK0ER, 4B1BEF (double mult and the first XE station of the weekend!), CE3F (another double mult and first zone 12 of the contest), and ZB2X.  That got me to 30 zones and 101 countries on 10m.

Meanwhile, 15m had continued to run well through the 18Z hour.  At 1924Z, I tried to repeat the success of the previous day by going to 20m.  I landed a beautiful clear frequency on 14014 and got off to a quick run.  I put the second radio on 15m and started hunting for multipliers.  HK6KKK was an immediate success.

I passed the W4AN record at 1938Z when I completed a QSO with I6FDJ.  Line score at the time was 4291/154/507 for 8.27 Meg.  At least now if I lost, I could have the satisfaction of having entered rarified air.  Eleven years ago I had won the contest and set the USA record from K3TUP with 3214/155/432 and 5.5 Meg.  What a difference a sunspot cycle makes!

At 1953Z, VQ9GB called me on 20m for a new multiplier.  I thought about asking him to move to 40, but it seemed a bit early.  4Z5LF gave me another new one a few minutes later.  ZL3CW also called in on 20m via the long path.

At 2018Z, NP2L called me on 20m and I asked him to move to 15m.

Unfortunately, he said he just came from there and refused.  Never hurts to ask!  HB0/DJ0IP then called and gave me country #100 on 20m.  Meanwhile, I found FG/N0JK, XE2/K7ZS (double), and FY5KE on 15m for new ones.  I was now at 100 countries on 15m.

I asked OX/N6ZZ to move from 15m to 20m, but he said later.  I gave him the frequency I was CQing on just in case.  It was a pleasant surprise when he answered me about 15 minutes later at 2051Z.

The rate on 20m during this period was slow (relative to the rest of the contest) but steady.  I had an incredibly clear frequency and this made multiplier chasing on the second radio much easier.  Sleep deprivation is a funny thing and you never know how it will manifest itself.  I started having funny thoughts about the stations that were calling me on 20m.  I keep thinking they were out there working up the courage to call.  When they did call and were puny weak, I would think how they were not strong enough to beat me in a battle.  I guess you had to be there to fully understand. 🙂

At 2230Z, 20m had finally slowed to the point that it was time to do something else.  I had just worked a bunch of multipliers on 10 and 15, so 40m seemed like the next target.  I started to look for a place to call CQ.

I heard K1RX working VQ9QM.  K1RX asked QM to move to 3549 so I followed them down.  They worked and then QM started running Europeans.  It took me a few minutes to break the pile-up and get the double multiplier on 80.  Since QM had been loud on 40m, and we have known each other for a long time, I asked him to go back to 40m.  He did and I was able to work him for another double mult.  Only after our QSO on 40m did I realize that I had forgotten to change the antenna switch from 80 back to 40m.  Chasing VQ9QM on 80 resulted in the only period of the contest where I went more than 10 minutes without a QSO.  It took 14.

With just 70 minutes left in the contest, I was hoping to end with a run on 40m.  I wedged in at 7019 but the rate just wasn’t happening.  After the contest I would figure out the beam was pointing at 90 degrees instead of 45. Need to get that indicator fixed!  I kept chasing multipliers on the second radio.  Moved TI5N from 15m to 10m for a new one.

At 2308Z, I decided that I wasn’t going to get a free ride home and would have to do some work.  Since I had been running most of the contest, it seemed that I should be able to search and pounce for some easy QSOs.  I found JY9NX on 7051 with a messy pileup that I somehow made it through.

Then found ZC4ZM for another multiplier.  Worked some JAs on 15m while pouncing on 40m.  Found 4X/OK1DTP for another new one.

With just 15 minutes left, decided to take another pass through 20m.

Immediately found XE1IDJ for a double multiplier.  Then found JY9NX again for another new one.  My last QSO was PJ5N for another new country.  What a finish!

Final Thoughts

– This was a great year for competition in the single op all band USA category.  I knew going in that K1AR, KQ2M, NT1N, N2NT, and W1KM would be the guys to beat.  This provided a powerful motivation and was one reason that I stayed in the chair.  It is funny that I hardly ever heard any of these guys during the weekend.  We were each in our own little world.

– This contest is so big and has so much activity that it actually gets harder for single ops to find all of the multipliers.  The list of scores on the 3830 reflector shows many very active stations that I never heard or only worked one or two times.  For example:

8P9Z – Never heard him all weekend except for our QSO on 80m Friday night.

A45XR – Only heard once on 15m.

GJ2A – Worked on 2 bands Friday night and never heard again.

MU2K – Only worked on 2 bands.  Missed GU on 10 and 160.

EY8MM – Never heard.

B7K – Never heard.

P29VPY – Never heard.

T88JA – Only heard one time when we worked.

V8A – Heard on 40m and worked on 10m.

A35RK – Only worked on 2 bands and never heard otherwise.

JX7DFA – He made over 2600 QSOs on 10m and I never heard him.

V47KP – Never heard.

To the question of 10 million for a single op from the USA, yes it is possible.  But it will take a year with lots of multipliers active and the combination of low and high band conditions we had this year.  The way scores continue to increase, I guess nothing can be thought impossible.

– My goal before the contest was 4000 QSOs and 500 countries.  During the contest, I was trying to make it to 1000+ QSOs on 40-10.  So close on 40 and 20 but couldn’t get over the top.  Making 4 band DXCC is cool.  Not sure it has been done before by a single op in this contest, but noticed a number of guys did it this year.  I remember when a multi-multi first made 5BDXCC in a weekend.  Can a single op do it someday?

– SO2R is a tool that helps me compete with bigger stations such as K1AR (@K1EA).  I worked a total of 550 QSOs on the second radio.  Some of them I would have worked anyway, but the ability to chase multipliers without having to give up rate can not be underestimated.  It is an acquired skill that adds to my enjoyment of the game.  It also has risk in that it can lead to mental fatigue and increased error rate.

– With all the “votes” in, we have K1AR at 9.32M and I am at 9.22M.  That is only a 1% difference.  This one is going to the log checkers for final determination.  The CQWW log checking is the best in the world and I will be comfortable with their decision in either direction.

– I felt like I had a very accurate weekend in terms of getting the calls of the stations I was working correct.  I asked for lots of repeats and confirmations.  However, I know that many stations copy my call as KH7D. This often results in a NIL for me (the computer doesn’t match K5ZD with KH7D).

That is one reason that I rarely sent over 36 WPM.  Too fast and the mistakes increase.  I can tell when the packet spot goes out for KH7D because the pile-up momentarily increases and people start sending “QSL via?” on the frequency.

Thanks to everyone for a great contest!  See you again next year.

Randy, K5ZD

Breakdown by Continent

       160M   80M    40M    20M    15M    10M   Total      %

EU      72    334    868    801    716   1039    3830    84.5
AS       0      4     21     91     58     68     242     5.3
NA      28     43     59     57     35     46     268     5.9
SA       2      6     12     19     25     19      83     1.8
AF       2      7     13     16     15     14      67     1.5
OC       1      2      8     13     11      9      44     1.0

Rate sheet

QSO/ZN+DX by hour and band

Hour  160M    80M     40M     20M     15M      10M    Total    Cumm   2Radio

00Z  --+--   --+--   --+--  104/58   27/25    --+--  131/83   131/83    27
01Z    -       -     54/33   46/14    7/8       -    107/55   238/138   19
02Z    -       -     99/16   31/17     -        -    130/33   368/171   30
03Z  17/17   22/21   31/6     6/4      -        -     76/48   444/219   11
04Z    -     84/21   18/5      -       -        -    102/26   546/245   18
05Z  28/15   21/7    18/3      -       -        -     67/25   613/270   18
06Z  36/8    20/2    19/9      -       -        -     75/19   688/289   19
07Z    -     37/14   47/3      -       -        -     84/17   772/306   18
08Z   5/4     3/3    74/3     8/2    --+--    --+--   90/12   862/318   15
09Z    -       -     15/8    74/3      -        -     89/11   951/329   16
10Z    -      3/2    11/11   24/2    16/13      -     54/28  1005/357    6
11Z   1/2     5/5      -     73/4    37/13      -    116/24  1121/381    5
12Z    -       -       -      4/0    39/8    101/34  144/42  1265/423    7
13Z    -       -       -       -      6/0    159/11  165/11  1430/434    6
14Z    -       -       -       -     16/3    149/9   165/12  1595/446   16
15Z    -       -       -       -     14/5    136/2   150/7   1745/453   14
16Z  --+--   --+--   --+--   --+--   13/6    128/5   141/11  1886/464   13
17Z    -       -       -       -    119/3     18/14  137/17  2023/481   14
18Z    -       -       -       -     95/5     22/11  117/16  2140/497   22
19Z    -       -       -    127/8     6/1      1/0   134/9   2274/506    4
20Z    -       -       -    108/1     9/6       -    117/7   2391/513    9
21Z    -       -     16/5    50/2    12/7       -     78/14  2469/527   12
22Z    -       -    103/5      -       -      10/5   113/10  2582/537   10
23Z    -       -     99/0      -       -      24/7   123/7   2705/544   24
00Z  --+--   --+--   74/4    --+--   12/5      4/2    90/11  2795/555   16
01Z    -      1/1    53/6     1/0    19/4       -     74/11  2869/566   21
02Z    -     11/2    30/0    19/6      -        -     60/8   2929/574   15
03Z    -     23/3      -     19/2      -        -     42/5   2971/579    7
04Z   3/2    46/1      -       -       -        -     49/3   3020/582    0
05Z   3/2    50/1      -      2/0      -        -     55/3   3075/585    2
06Z   1/0    49/2     3/0      -       -        -     53/2   3128/587    3
07Z   8/1    13/2    42/0      -       -        -     63/3   3191/590    6
08Z  --+--    3/3    80/5    --+--   --+--    --+--   83/8   3274/598    3
09Z    -      1/0    53/0     7/1      -        -     61/1   3335/599    8
10Z   3/3     3/3     9/6    22/0      -        -     37/12  3372/611    7
11Z    -       -       -     62/2    12/2       -     74/4   3446/615    8
12Z    -       -       -      3/1    54/2     85/4   142/7   3588/622    5
13Z    -       -       -       -      6/3    134/3   140/6   3728/628    6
14Z    -       -       -       -     37/3     82/4   119/7   3847/635   13
15Z    -       -       -       -     96/4     18/3   114/7   3961/642   18
16Z  --+--   --+--   --+--   --+--   73/1     14/2    87/3   4048/645    8
17Z    -       -       -       -       -      78/7    78/7   4126/652    0
18Z    -       -       -       -     89/0     17/3   106/3   4232/655   16
19Z    -       -       -     58/1    30/1      5/5    93/7   4325/662    8
20Z    -       -       -     51/4     9/7       -     60/11  4385/673    9
21Z    -       -       -     58/3     2/2      4/6    64/11  4449/684    6
22Z    -      1/2     8/2    31/0     1/0      5/2    46/6   4495/690    7
23Z    -       -     25/3     9/4     4/0      1/1    39/8   4534/698    5

Day1 87/46  195/75  604/107 655/115 416/103  748/ 98                   353
Day2 18/ 8  201/20  377/ 26 342/ 24 444/ 34  447/ 42                   197

Tot 105/54  396/95  981/133 997/139 860/137 1195/140                   550

Most worked countries

           160M    80M   40M    20M    15M    10M    Total

    DL      16     60    164    133    111    193     677
    OK       5     34     81     54     78     97     349
    UA       1     17     53     63     65    101     300
     G       9     11     56     57     36     52     221
     F       5     17     45     47     42     43     199
    UR       -     22     64     21     37     51     195
    SP       2     15     39     27     32     47     162
     I       -     12     20     45     32     41     150
    S5       2     11     36     28     23     30     130
    YU       1     11     24     27     22     32     117
    OH       -     11     18     32     20     22     103
    HA       1     10     22     18     19     32     102
    VE      13     12     22     27     10     16     100
    JA       -      1      4     34     27     25      91

K5ZD (W2SC opr.), Single Op All Band, High Power

By Tom Georgens, W2SC

Summary Sheet

                    
           ARRL INTERNATIONAL DX CONTEST -- 1999

  Call: K5ZD (W2SC op)            Country:  United States
  Mode: CW                       Category: Single Operator

      BAND     QSO   COUNTRIES

      160       44       29     GP      
       80      218       54     Inverted V      
       40      723       70     402CD
       20      815       77     5/5, TH7        
       15     1044       89     5/5, TH7        
       10      825       85     6L, TH7
     ----------------------

     Totals   3669      404  =   4,446,828

The Contest

This year’s ARRL DX story begins at 5AM Wednesday morning when I wake up to catch a flight to California for an important business review with my pseudo board of directors. Many days of preparation go into the meeting and it goes well but is a very intense 5 hours. When it is over, I get a page offering me tickets to the Warriors game, but I pass in recognition of a big weekend ahead. The next morning, I am up again at 5 AM for the cross country trip to K5ZD’s and arrive in Boston at about 4:30 PM. The car rental counter and rush hour traffic are relatively painless and I get to Randy’s station at about 6:30.

After the CQWW SSB debacle, I was determined to be ready for this contest and was pleased that Randy had almost everything working before I even arrived. A couple weeks earlier he picked up my AL-1200 from my old station for use with the second radio and had set up the two radio switching box I built last summer. Randy debugged the radio interface box for the second radio and I replayed the traditional ritual of remembering which LPT bit controls Radio 1/Radio 2 in which version of CT. In relatively short order, everything was working and seemed ready to go and it was time for some desperately needed sleep.

After being in bed for a few minutes, I hear some rustling but figure it is just the dog in the hall. The next thing I know something is hitting me on the head and it turns out to be one of Randy’s cats. I reach for the cat but it runs and hides. A while later, I wake up to a cat standing on me. This time I grabbed the cat, put it in the hall and went back to bed. Minutes later, another cat jumps on me. That cat was also captured, put in the hall, and I returned to bed for a good night’s sleep.

The next morning I was checking the bands for propagation in light of the disturbed conditions that were predicted. The bands indeed were as bad as the numbers would indicate. I started to set up CT (cty file, master file, etc) when I discovered that I could not key the radios. It appeared that CT could not talk to LPT2, and LPT1 was already used for the Radio1/Radio 2 switching. Several calls to Randy led to the conclusion that the port was disabled in DOS and neither of us knew how to turn it back on. Much to Randy’s displeasure, I decided to take apart his W1WEF keying interface and merge the radio control and CW bits and use LPT1 for both functions, which worked fine all weekend. As much as we try to not have to rewire the station to suit our individual tastes, it never works out that way.

It is now around 17Z and I have some personal errands to run as my old house in Massachusetts has just been put up for sale and there are a number of things to resolve. I return around 1830Z to get a nap before the contest. When I wake up, I check my messages at work and things are relatively quiet. I make a mental note that this is the first time I can remember that there were no burning crises keeping me on the phone until minutes before the contest.

As I sit in front of the radios, it seems like everything is ready. My only concern now is myself. I have not operated CW since last ARRL at 8P9JG and the time before that was the 1997 ARRL DX. I felt very rusty when listening on the bands and, particularly, when sending. I had not sent code with a paddle in two years. I did not think running would be a problem (as it wasn’t from 8P) but I figured that S&P’ing on the second radio would be an issue. Nonetheless, I would just make the best of it and hope it came back quickly.

With conditions the way they were, there was little alternative other than to start on 40. When the contest started, 40 meter signals did not sound anywhere near as strong as they had earlier in the day and the response to my initial CQ’s were sporadic but still decent. After 30 minutes, I had 50 Q’s but did not feel very strong. From there the rate dropped and I started combing 20 and 15 for multipliers. The first hour ended with an unimpressive 78 Q’s. The next hour was spent multiplier chasing combined with relatively unproductive CQ’ing on 40 and netted an anemic 68 Q’s.

In the next hour I tried 80 for the first time, and it was miserable. Signals seemed very weak and the noise was deafening, even with the beverage. 160 was not much better as the noise was equally bad on top band. While the Caribbean stations were especially loud, the noise blanketed all but the strongest Europeans. It was clearly going to be a long night on the low bands. My apologies to the stations calling on 80 that I simply could not pull through the noise.

A couple hours into the contest, the second radio started to act strange. At first I thought I had serious interstation interference but the problem persisted even when I was not sending. I knew that Randy had been having problems with the radio but never did it impact a contest. Throughout the night, the radio would work some times but not others and I could not figure out the pattern. I more or less resigned myself to the fact that it would be a one radio weekend. However, around 0730Z Randy stopped by before going to bed and I told him about the radio. He was surprised since the problem usually dissipates after a warm-up period, but he added a critical bit of information, it was only a problem on 20. This explains why it seemed to work intermittently. With that information, if I ran on the second radio on all bands but 20, I could once again use two radios.

In contrast to most of the night, 40 turned productive around 07Z and Europeans were runnable to 09Z. The next 90 minutes were spent chasing multipliers and was capped with a first ever (for me) JA “run” on 40 up to 1030Z. At this point I had a disappointing 588 Q’s, mostly on 40, and it was time to see if the high bands would rebound from the storm.

Twenty was hot from the first CQ and was the start of 9 consecutive 100 hours in which 1200 stations were worked. After a quick 152 Q’s, listening on the second radio, signals were strong on 15 and it was time to jump even though the rate meter was over 170/hr. 15 proved to be even more intense and the subsequent 60 minutes were a Qrate best of 186/hr. 181 Q’s later, 1235Z, 10 started to sound good and I jumped 10 with rate meter once again hovering around 180. I was nervous about this transition since ten did not play well at all in the CQWW SSB and the new 6 element at 25 feet was unproven.

Ten performed reasonably well. It was not the frenzy of 20 and 15 but was consistent and I finished the 11Z and 12Z hours with 173 and 179 Q’s respectively. It was my best single and consecutive hours ever from a stateside QTH. I could not maintain the pace on 10 and the rate slowly dropped, but was still respectable. After 530 Q’s the band seemed to be losing some volume and despite still being runnable, it seemed time to go back to 15 so I QSY’d at 1538Z. Rate was still strong at about 2/minute and at 1635Z I made my first second radio QSO in nearly 6 hours. With more second radio Q’s finding their way into the log I went back to 20 at 1839Z. I remember contests from here where I made 2/3 of all Q’s on twenty, but this time I felt that I was neglecting the band. The rate picked up again but my string of 100+ hours was snapped at 20Z with a 97 hour.

At 2140Z it was off to 40 meters to grab the early 40 meter opening but it was not to be. Two separate trips to 40 were not fruitful as the usually big hours never materialized. At 2311Z I worked a JA on 10 but did not hear much else and could not get a run going. However, when tuning on 15 I heard a pile of JA’s calling W1WEF so I tried to run a few JA’s, while simultaneously hoping for some good multipliers to call in. As it turned out, there was an excellent opening and I ran off 170 stations plus another dozen on the second radio. This was easily my best JA run ever and had the bonus of HL, BA, DU, and KL7 thrown in.

At the half way point I had 2121 Q’s and 321 multipliers for just over 2 million points. The high band totals looked good but I had less than 100 Q’s on 80. Also, the multiplier totals were pretty poor and I was very concerned. As it turned out, I would never get my 40 and 20 meter multipliers to a reasonable level. Randy has a rule of thumb that the final score is two times the 24 hour score plus 10% which would put my estimated final score at 4.4 million.

As the second day began, I knew I had to regain ground on 80 and was hoping for better propagation on 160 as this is a strong band from here and would give me a chance to get some extra multipliers. As it turned out, the noise levels on 80 and 160 were down dramatically but signal levels were still not that good. I spent the next six hours slugging it out mostly on 80 and 160 with moderate success. However, the 07Z and 08Z hours on 40 were even better than the night before. 09Z on the second day is never a pleasant hour and this year it was no different with my only sub-10 hour of the contest. At this time I debated whether to to take one of my usual 15 minute naps but decided to just push on.

The Sunday rotation went as smoothly as the day before and 11Z, 12Z, and 13Z all produced 100+ hours. At 1555Z, it seemed like it was time to return to 15 meters but, upon returning to the band, I just could not get anything going. A similar event occurred in the CQWW SSB where I lost propagation on 15 about this time. I qsy’d back to 10 for another hour before returning to a healthier 15 meters. The remainder of the contest was spent running on 20, looking to add to my lowly multiplier total, and hoping for a good stint on 40 before the contest was over. Unfortunately, 40 never produced for me and I ran out the contest on 20.

When the contest was over I finished with 3669 Q’s, a new record for me, and 404 multipliers, which was sure to be problematic. I also felt great despite being up for the full 48 hours. I think the lack of pre-contest stress made a definite difference and I did not feel mentally or physically tired. While I was hardly 100%, it was, by far the best I have ever felt after one of these events.

When the contest was over, it was time for the 3830 ritual. However, the frequency was busy and the inhabitants were not eager to cede the frequency. This only served to incense a pack of loud, tired contesters and chaos ensued. Randy and I got a huge laugh out of mild mannered K3ZO mixing it up with these guys. Even K1AR was yapping at them. In the end, after spending 48 hours operating with 250 Hz of separation, a clear frequency was not found and the scores were not taken. In fairness to the rag chewers, had they plopped down on my run frequency during the contest, I would have been just aggressive about running them off.

About a half hour after the contest ended, the phone rings and a very tired sounding K1DG is on the other end. He drops the surprising news that he is also SOAB and wants to know my score, having already talked to W4AN and N2NT. It turns out that we are virtually tied with only 1% separating our scores. In a few minutes it was clear that I really hurt myself by not aggressively moving multipliers between bands. Similarly, I suspect Doug wished he did not take three hours sleep. Nonetheless we had a good conversation and I hung up thinking that I sure felt better than he sounded.

When the cone of silence is lifted from K1ZM’s score, I suspect that he will be the winner and I offer my congratulations. It was also great to see many class op’s return to SOAB and dramatically increase the competition.

All in all, despite the rust and mild disappointment in my score, I had a great deal of fun. I would like to thank Randy (K5ZD) for the use of his fine station and his wife Connie and son Andrew for their tolerance and hospitality. Also, thanks to the other fine operators who continually raise the bar on the competition and, especially, all of the stations who took the time to give me a QSO.

73 and I also love this game,

Tom W2SC

Continent Statistics

                     
                     160   80   40   20   15   10  ALL   percent

North America   CW    16   22   20   23   23   22  126     3.4
South America   CW     2    2    5   13   19   20   61     1.7
Europe          CW    25  188  633  732  766  749 3093    84.3
Asia            CW     1    1   50   33  224   22  331     9.0
Africa          CW     0    1    5    5    6    6   23     0.6
Oceania         CW     0    4   10    9    6    6   35     1.0

Rate Breakdown

HOUR      160      80       40       20       15       10    HR TOT  CUM TOT  

   0    .....    .....    76/29     2/2     .....    .....    78/31   78/31 
   1      .        .      44/5     20/15     4/3       .      68/23  146/54 
   2      .       8/6     66/6       .        .        .      74/12  220/66 
   3     3/3     20/14    26/4       .        .        .      49/21  269/87 
   4      .      23/6      9/6      6/3       .        .      38/15  307/102
   5     7/5     10/2     40/1       .        .        .      57/8   364/110
   6      .      17/5     36/1       .        .        .      53/6   417/116
   7     5/5      5/4     53/4       .        .        .      63/13  480/129
   8     1/0      7/4     52/2     .....    .....    .....    60/6   540/135
   9     2/2       .      24/3      1/1       .        .      27/6   567/141
  10     1/1      4/3     10/0     67/22      .        .      82/26  649/167
  11      .        .        .      91/13    82/27      .     173/40  822/207
  12      .        .        .        .     100/11    79/32   179/43 1001/250
  13      .        .        .        .        .     146/10   146/10 1147/260
  14      .        .        .        .        .     137/6    137/6  1284/266
  15      .        .        .        .      50/3     67/1    117/4  1401/270
  16    .....    .....    .....     1/0    112/3      4/4    117/7  1518/277
  17      .        .        .        .      98/3     10/3    108/6  1626/283
  18      .        .        .      45/2     57/1      4/1    106/4  1732/287
  19      .        .        .     114/4     10/3       .     124/7  1856/294
  20      .        .        .      91/1       .       6/4     97/5  1953/299
  21      .        .      16/0     14/0     16/10     7/1     53/11 2006/310
  22      .        .      26/1       .      15/4      1/1     42/6  2048/316
  23      .        .       2/0      2/2     68/3      1/0     73/5  2121/321
   0    .....    .....    .....     1/0     77/1     .....    78/1  2199/322
   1     3/2     13/2      6/0       .      38/0       .      60/4  2259/326
   2     4/3      8/1     21/0      5/2       .        .      38/6  2297/332
   3     8/5     17/1      1/0       .        .        .      26/6  2323/338
   4     2/0     15/1     18/0       .        .        .      35/1  2358/339
   5     8/3     20/3       .        .        .        .      28/6  2386/345
   6      .      47/1     20/0       .        .        .      67/1  2453/346
   7      .       2/0     72/2       .        .        .      74/2  2527/348
   8    .....     2/1     63/1     .....    .....    .....    65/2  2592/350
   9      .        .       6/3       .        .        .       6/3  2598/353
  10      .        .       1/1     78/2       .        .      79/3  2677/356
  11      .        .        .      28/0     82/0       .     110/0  2787/356
  12      .        .        .        .      85/2     27/3    112/5  2899/361
  13      .        .        .        .        .     101/6    101/6  3000/367
  14      .        .        .       3/1       .      92/1     95/2  3095/369
  15      .        .        .       1/1      4/1     53/3     58/5  3153/374
  16    .....    .....    .....    .....    18/2     60/2     78/4  3231/378
  17      .        .        .        .      70/3     12/1     82/4  3313/382
  18      .        .        .       4/1     42/2      7/1     53/4  3366/386
  19      .        .        .      72/1      9/1       .      81/2  3447/388
  20      .        .        .      60/0      1/1     10/4     71/5  3518/393
  21      .        .        .      49/0      5/4       .      54/4  3572/397
  22      .        .      35/1     14/2      1/1      1/1     51/5  3623/402
  23      .        .        .      46/2       .        .      46/2  3669/404
DAY1    19/16    94/44   480/62   454/65   612/71   462/63    ..... 2121/321
DAY2    25/13   124/10   243/8    361/12   432/18   363/22      .   1548/ 83 
TOT     44/29   218/54   723/70   815/77  1044/89   825/85      .   3669/404

BREAKDOWN in mins/QSO's per hr
DAY1  0.8/25   2.3/41   7.7/62   4.0/115  5.3/115  3.8/122   .....  23.8/89 
DAY2  1.4/18   2.8/44   4.0/61   4.9/74   5.2/83   4.3/84      .    22.6/68 
TOT   2.1/21   5.2/42  11.7/62   8.9/92  10.5/99   8.1/102     .    46.5/79