Call: K5ZD (W2SC Op) Country: United States
Mode: SSB Category: Single Operator(Unassisted)
BAND QSO Zones COUNTRIES
160 67 11 34
80 333 18 76
40 339 21 91
20 1313 37 136
15 1023 30 114
10 102 18 53
---------------------------------------------------
Totals 3177 135 504 => 5,827,041
Living in Radio Free Kansas, I had not even listened on the bands since
the ARRL SSB weekend. On top of that, I missed Dayton this year as my son
was born on May 22. Nonetheless the Internet buzz about increasing Solar
Flux was starting to get me psyched for WW SSB from Randy's (K5ZD). Randy
said that he station was rearranged and I should get in early enough to
set up the station and reinstall my two radio switching gear.
My plan was to fly out on Wednesday afternoon but work was so busy that I
delayed
to the last flight that night. My connection was late in Chicago and I had
ten
minutes to change terminals and catch my flight. I spend much of my life in
airports and I have promised myself that I would never be one of those guys
who
breathlessly run around trying to catch flights. However, this was vacation
so I
swallowed my pride and made a dash for the gate . Just as I arrived, the
attendant
asked, "are you Georgens from Wichita?" I said yes and they put the gate
back
to the plane and reopened the door. I got to Boston around 12:30AM and to a
brand new Day's Inn at 1:30AM. It was cool in the room so I turned on the
heat
and went to bed. Evidently, the heater had never been used before and the
smoke
detector went off at 2AM.
Fortunately, the rest of the weekend went smoothely. I got to Randy's on
Thursday morning and had almost everything working by the time he got home
from work. The last issue was the computer control and the KIY interface
which he fixed in short order. All day Thursday the bands were hopping with
DXpeditioners raving about the conditions but, that night there was a
geomagnetic
storm that would affect the whole weekend. Since the northern latitudes
would
be impacted the most, I wondered if this would be the break Bill (W4AN)
would
need to sneak past the W1's. By contrast, on Friday, there was much whining
on
the bands about what could have been.
Everything was ready by 0Z and I started on 20 CQ'ing toward Asia with the
second
radio on 15. The CQ's netted zero contacts and I could not break the
pileups very
well on 15. I gave up on trying to run and S&P'd on 20 and 40 for the rest
of the
hour. 20 stayed open all night and I spent the rest of the evening with the
second
radio on 20 while CQing on 40 and 80. 160 was a big disappointment but 40
and
80 were productive with a 71 hour at 3Z.
I was quite pleased with the first night but I was wondering what high band
conditions would be like. Twenty opened well but I was keeping the second
radio on 15 listening for the opening. At one point KC1XX was getting some
answers
so I made the move. Unfortunately, it was too early and 5 minutes of CQ's
resulted
in 5 Q's and I went back to twenty. Despite the detour, it was a 119 hour.
At this point, I was very worried about 15. The storm combined with the
fact
that my poor performance on 15 cost me at least one (ARRL SSB 96) and
possibly
a second (ARRL CW 97) contest victory. This year Randy added a lower 5L 15
to
hopefully fill in the gaps. I went back to 15 about 30 minutes later and it
was still a bit slow but then exploded. I had my first ever 200+ hour last
year
at K1IU an this was very similar. The difference is that 10 meters was also
opening and I needed to be careful not to miss much. I was running about as
hard
as I could while still tuning 10 and working guys on the second radio. At
one
point, I had the last 10 over 300, the last 100 over 200, and was trying to
work
FR5DX on 10. I worked 316 Q's from 13-14Z including 11 new mults on 10.
Qrate
peaked at 191 but I felt better about the two radio technique than setting a
new
personal best hour.
After 15 ran out I went back for a few more solid hours on 20. Last year, I
had
a great run on 40 at 22Z so I planned to give that another try but it did
not
really produce this year. However, the JA's sounded great in the second
radio
so I went to twenty and had short, but exciting run of about 50 stations
with VR97
and 9M8 calling in.
At the halfway point, I had 1832 Q's and 2.67 Mpoints. Randy has a rule of
thumb
that the final score is twice the first half plus 10% or around 5.9 Meg. If
I was
going to get there, I needed to have a productive night. Last year I had 10
consecutive hours under 10 Q's.
The bands were actually quite good but the rain static made it very
difficult to
hear. There were lots more Q's to be made but I just could not pull them
out.
At 4Z, 80 seemed to peak so I decided to try 160 since the previous night
had been
so unproductive. 160 was noisy with few Europen signals but I did manage to
work TK5NN on one call after he had been CQ'ing in the face of a small
pileup.
Randy's signal on 160 is awesome. I had been upset at myself for not trying
to
CQ the night before and I was not going to pass up an opportunity this time.
The
results were frustrating as I has several stations calling but had a
difficult time
pulling them out of the noise. I ended the hour with 27 Q's and 12 mults on
160.
I clearly should have done this the night before as well. 48 hours may seem
like
a long time but it is never enough to hit all of the openings.
After European sunrise, a very unusual thing occured. I thank Fred (K3ZO)
for his
commentary about the my CQ'ing on the wrong VFO because it may explain what
happened.
I was operating early Sunday morning when the phone rang. I thought it
unusual
but did not give it much thought until Randy's wife Connie came into the
radio
room (Randy had left for KC1XX earlier that evening). She said that some
guy had
called to say my "splits were bad." I was stunned and did not know what to
say.
I told here that it was an accident and everything was OK now. She seemed
satisfied but she had a look that seem to say "I don't know what splits are
but,
if yours are bad maybe you should not be here." I aplogized for her
inconvenience
and we joked about it after the contest. Was that you who called Fred?
Nonetheless,
I apologize for the QRM I caused and poor operating technique. Fred
suggested that
I may have been tired but I offer no excuse and it should not have happened.
Fred,
thank for your concern and for calling it to my attention.
On a lighter note, Randy's station has one minor inconvenience. When the
sun
comes up in the morning, it is right in the operator's face. To block the
Sun,
I put my box of Wheat Thins (the only thing I ate all weekend along with OJ
and
Coke) on top of the monitor. Later, I decided I was hungry and did not find
the
Wheat Thins on the table next to me. While I was operating, I was searching
under
the table, on the floor behind me, and under the papers. I convinced myself
that
Randy's dog had taken them when I noticed that they were right in front of
my
face on the monitor. Contesting makes you crazy...or keeps you crazy.
My biggest concern as I approached the high band opening was whether I
missed a 10
meter opening the day before and did my competion work a pile of extra
mults. My
plan was to go to 10 regardless of rate as soon as I heard any EU on the
band. 20
started well and I moved to 15 when it opened. The rate picked up and was
around
150 when I heard IQ4A on 10 so I left the rate and S&P'd on 10. I tried a
few CQ's
but got few answers. I was hoping for a zone 20 double mult but it did not
happen.
Eventually it became fruitless and I was back on 15. When the rate slowed I
decided to take one more pass at 10 and then go to 20.
When I got to 10 I still needed zone 3 so I decided to try a "CQ ZONE 3."
Unbelievably
I got a resopnse on the first CQ. Some weekends, everything just seems to
work;
except of course the "bad splits."
It turns out that I gave up on 15 too soon as I could not get stuff to
happen on
20. The stations were weak and I could not pull them out of the QRM. The
lack of
sleep started to hit and my concentration lagged. After about a half hour,
the
signals picked up again and I got my second wind. 20 hung in with good rate
until
around 22Z. I then went to 40 to run out the contest while looking for
mults on
20 and 15. In the last 15 minutes I tried to S&P for a few last minute
mults on
40 and 160. It was not successful, this approach never works but I keep
trying it
anyway.
In the end, Randy's scoring algorithm was very close. It was by far my best
effort. I never broke 3000 Q's before and I worked the second radio better
that
I ever had previously. Randy's station is a joy to operate. Everything is
simple to understand and works perfectly. I feel privileged to have used it
now
for the fourth time. Maybe the old man himself will put it on the air for
WW CW.
One of the amazing things about operating as K5ZD is the amount of people
who greet him by name. At least one in 15-20 Q's will offer a personal
greeting. I wonder if he will get anybody to say "HI TOM" when he operates
next.
Once again thank to all for the QSOs, thanks to the CQ committee for a great
contest, and thanks to Randy, Connie, and Andrew for their hospitality.
I include my rate sheet for those true die hards. Besides the big hours the
things
I notice are QSO's in every hour, only two hours under 20, and only three
hours
with Q's on one band (A measure of the use of the second radio).
73, and enjoy WW CW
Tom W2SC tom.georgens@symbios.com
BREAKDOWN QSO/mults K5ZD CQ WORLD WIDE DX CONTEST Single Operator
HOUR 160 80 40 20 15 10 HR TOT CUM TOT
0 ..... ..... 15/9 38/26 5/5 ..... 58/40 58/40
1 . . 34/16 17/6 . . 51/22 109/62
2 4/4 34/20 9/4 10/3 . . 57/31 166/93
3 . 61/14 . 10/6 . . 71/20 237/113
4 10/6 9/1 4/2 5/3 . . 28/12 265/125
5 3/3 4/0 22/4 8/3 . . 37/10 302/135
6 3/2 44/8 . 9/1 . . 56/11 358/146
7 6/4 10/5 25/4 6/4 . . 47/17 405/163
8 ..... 10/7 31/9 1/1 ..... ..... 42/17 447/180
9 1/1 10/4 18/10 . . . 29/15 476/195
10 . 5/4 11/5 23/12 . . 39/21 515/216
11 . . . 114/23 5/5 . 119/28 634/244
12 . . . 76/5 46/16 2/2 124/23 758/267
13 . . . . 153/17 5/4 158/21 916/288
14 . . . . 150/8 8/7 158/15 1074/303
15 . . . . 79/4 5/5 84/9 1158/312
16 ..... ..... ..... ..... 94/8 7/3 101/11 1259/323
17 . . . 41/4 28/15 2/1 71/20 1330/343
18 . . . 108/2 5/4 2/2 115/8 1445/351
19 . . . 106/4 8/4 1/1 115/9 1560/360
20 . . . 68/12 10/6 4/4 82/22 1642/382
21 . . . 41/7 7/2 22/3 70/12 1712/394
22 . . 18/2 40/2 8/1 . 66/5 1778/399
23 . . 24/5 30/2 . . 54/7 1832/406
0 ..... 3/0 31/0 5/1 ..... ..... 39/1 1871/407
1 1/0 20/1 7/5 5/0 . . 33/6 1904/413
2 . 34/7 1/1 3/0 . . 38/8 1942/421
3 1/0 3/2 17/3 . . . 21/5 1963/426
4 . 47/2 1/1 . . . 48/3 2011/429
5 27/12 . . . . . 27/12 2038/441
6 10/4 27/0 3/3 . . . 40/7 2078/448
7 . 8/2 17/2 . . . 25/4 2103/452
8 ..... 3/0 5/1 ..... ..... ..... 8/1 2111/453
9 1/1 1/1 4/2 1/0 . . 7/4 2118/457
10 . . 2/2 20/0 . . 22/2 2140/459
11 . . . 90/1 . . 90/1 2230/460
12 . . . 69/1 22/1 . 91/2 2321/462
13 . . . . 138/6 . 138/6 2459/468
14 . . . . 64/1 20/9 84/10 2543/478
15 . . . . 104/4 2/1 106/5 2649/483
16 ..... ..... ..... ..... 84/3 2/1 86/4 2735/487
17 . . . 60/2 5/0 . 65/2 2800/489
18 . . . 74/3 . 4/1 78/4 2878/493
19 . . . 58/2 . 13/7 71/9 2949/502
20 . . . 80/2 . 3/3 83/5 3032/507
21 . . . 80/3 4/4 . 84/7 3116/514
22 . . 18/1 16/0 . . 34/1 3150/515
23 . . 22/1 1/0 4/2 . 27/3 3177/518
DAY1 27/20 187/63 211/70 751/126 598/95 58/32 ..... 1832/406
DAY2 40/17 146/15 128/22 562/15 425/21 44/22 . 1345/112
TOT 67/37 333/78 339/92 1313/141 1023/116 102/54 . 3177/518
--
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