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[3830] CQWW CW K5ZD SOAB(A) HP

To: 3830@contesting.com, k5zd@contesting.com
Subject: [3830] CQWW CW K5ZD SOAB(A) HP
From: webform@b4h.net
Reply-to: k5zd@contesting.com
Date: Mon, 01 Dec 2014 15:29:45 +0000
List-post: <3830@contesting.com">mailto:3830@contesting.com>
                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW

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

Class: SOAB(A) HP
QTH: W1
Operating Time (hrs): 44.4
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:  106    17       62
   80:  502    24       96
   40: 1163    39      125
   20: 1100    39      143
   15: 1142    37      138
   10: 1009    35      133
------------------------------
Total: 5022   191      697  Total Score = 12,967,464

Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club

Comments:

What a memorable contest.  Fantastic conditions on all bands matched with
incredible activity from every part of the globe!

Goals:
- Play with new toys
- See if I could push the USA record for SOA up a little higher

Station prep:

Through some good luck, was able to add a second K3 to my station the week of
the contest.  Also added an AL-1500 amplifier.  With two K3s, decided to try
the MK2R+ SO2R controller.  That took hours to correctly configure, but once
working it did everything I could want.  Maybe not the best idea to introduce
so much new stuff the week of a major.

Spent the one nice day on the previous weekend to put new coax on 10m stack. 
Knew the 160 antenna was intermittent, but decided to leave it. Should have
spent the time to work on it, but didn't think 160m would be that good.

Contest:

Have converted to Assisted because I hated doing the CQWW and never hearing all
the really good DX stations.  Now I can run and chase DX both.  Contest started
great.  Fell into a great run frequency on 80m and that was responsible for
most of my QSOs on the band.  Sometime later in the evening, I noticed the SWR
on the 80m 4 square was high when on the NE and SW directions.  Visual
inspection the next day didn't show any broken elements, but I was no longer
loud on 80.

Was a struggle to work anything on 160 the first night.  I think I had 30
countries and figured that was going to be about it.  The second night
conditions were much much better.  I was weak and had to wait in line, but I
eventually got through.

Was watching the online scoreboard. K1AR and his magic dipole were matching me
QSO for QSO for the first 8 hours.  A great source of motivation as I was
determined not to let him beat me!

Took a power nap of 20 minutes during the 10z hour.  Woke up feeling really
good.

What can you say about the high bands?  They were awesome.  Best 60 minutes was
a new personal best of 220.  It was tough to decide when to move up and down the
bands to capture the most stations. Not to mention the decision of when to run
and when to chase spots.

I was flying and totally committed to the contest when the logging software
locked up at 1430z.  I couldn't type anything.  Logged on paper while
rebooting.  Started running again and the logging window locked up again.  What
a moment of despair.  Decided to take out the MK2R+ and go back to the W5XD
keyer. Took some time to find the right cable and redo everything.  Total down
time was 45 minutes during some very high rates.

Back at it.  The conditions were too good to stop!  Short break during 20z to
get some food.  Then another at 01z.  Had 6+ Meg at the 24 hour mark, but with
590 countries, didn't see where I could possibly find more.  It was encouraging
to be on record pace.

Invested most of my time the second night on 80 and 160 chasing anything I
could work.  Was CQing on 20 and fun to have both Europe and Japan calling in
at the same time.  Was starting to drag a little and didn't think 40m was going
to be that great at Eu sunrise.  Decided sleep would help me be more productive
during the morning runs. Slept 3 hours between 0715 and 1030z.  I probably
should have tried to stick it out until 0900 and then slept 90 minutes.  Except
for the off times, I was in the chair.

Sunday was fantastic on the high bands.  I would run on one band and chase
spots on the other.  Then swap.  This probably hurt my 10m QSO total, but
helped with the mults.

One thing that really helped the rates and score was the amount of time the
bands were open to Russia and Eastern Europe.  Could not believe the number of
Russian stations (and their new short calls) that I worked.

On Sunday afternoon I was turning the 10m antenna to the West and let go of the
break to type something.  When I tried to turn the beam again, it wouldn't move.
 The break disengaged, but the antenna free wheeled to the north.  So another
thing that will need fixing.

I did experience one more logging window lockup on Sunday afternoon.  So now I
have to suspect a software problem. More testing required.  Have never had
problems with Writelog before.

Comments:

- Great score by K3WW.  I think I heard him two times all weekend.  You wonder
how we can both find 60+ countries on 160 and not hear each other more.  I
think I heard K1DG and K0DQ only 2-3 times all weekend.  Big scores require
keeping your head down and running all the time.

- Missed zone 34 on 20m and zone 23 on 40m. Did work all 40 zones. I think that
is a first in my years of single op.  Need to find a better spot management
strategy.  I couldn't keep the window open for all bands because there were too
many spots from other parts of the world so would open one band at a time. 

- Very pleased with how often people were sending their calls. Only one time
when the station wouldn't give their call when asked.  I spent very little time
waiting for stations to ID.  Thanks to all for that!

- Having so many bands open makes it easier to find run frequencies.  It didn't
really seem to matter if you were low or high in the band.  I had a very good
run on 28161!

- Really wanted to make the "5000 club".  That is USA single ops with
more than 5K QSOs after log checking.  Didn't think I would get so close or
would not have taken the extra 90 minutes of sleep.  But, I am going to blame
the lost time of the station rewiring for the miss!  

- Bad practice.  I heard JE3IGA (big S9 signal) call a Caribbean station on 80m
at 0830z and send 599 25.  This was clearly a remote operation transmitting from
the USA.  It pollutes the contest to have people give out bogus QSOs/mults like
this.

Station:

K3 + Alpha 76CA
K3/P3 + AL-1500

Antennas:
160m: GP, shunt fed tower
80m: 4 square
40m: 40-2CD @110'
20m: 5/5 @ 100'/50'
15m: 5/5 @ 66'/33'
10m: 6/4/4 @ 90'/60'/30'
Mult: TH7DXX @45'

Numbers:

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

    NA      30     57     88     70     43     58     346     6.9
    AF       3      8     19     26     16     17      89     1.8
    EU      63    410    979    825    960    832    4069    81.0
    AS       2      5     39    128     84     34     292     5.8
    SA       7     17     26     35     25     50     160     3.2
    OC       1      5     11     16     14     18      65     1.3


Rates:

<pre>
Hour   160M     80M     40M     20M     15M     10M    Total     Cumm    Off

0000Z  --+--   --+--   32/31   81/73   --+--   --+--  113/104   113/104 
0100Z    -       -     52/26   12/8    33/23     -     97/57    210/161 
0200Z   8/12    1/2    80/17   19/10     -       -    108/41    318/202 
0300Z    -    160/40   13/5      -       -       -    173/45    491/247 
0400Z    -    133/8    24/9      -       -       -    157/17    648/264 
0500Z  16/15   33/5    17/16    5/4      -       -     71/40    719/304 
0600Z    -     23/15   92/4     6/5      -       -    121/24    840/328 
0700Z    -     18/15  121/5      -       -       -    139/20    979/348 
0800Z  --+--   12/4   103/4    --+--   --+--   --+--  115/8    1094/356 
0900Z   7/8     6/6    40/12    8/6      -       -     61/32   1155/388 
1000Z   4/5     1/1     7/4     4/5      -       -     16/15   1171/403   25
1100Z    -       -      3/3   138/12   17/23     -    158/38   1329/441 
1200Z    -       -       -     44/12  137/35    7/12  188/59   1517/500 
1300Z    -       -       -       -     53/17  155/35  208/52   1725/552 
1400Z    -       -       -       -      7/8   117/11  124/19   1849/571   30
1500Z    -       -       -       -      3/0    38/11   41/11   1890/582   15
1600Z  --+--   --+--   --+--   --+--  143/6    24/17  167/23   2057/605 
1700Z    -       -       -       -    158/5    20/6   178/11   2235/616 
1800Z    -       -       -     27/8    53/17   24/24  104/49   2339/665 
1900Z    -       -       -    132/1      -     14/13  146/14   2485/679 
2000Z    -       -       -     72/3    13/11    9/2    94/16   2579/695   20
2100Z    -       -     59/9    10/4     6/2     3/0    78/15   2657/710 
2200Z    -       -    105/1      -       -     24/6   129/7    2786/717 
2300Z    -       -     98/3      -     18/3     3/1   119/7    2905/724 
0000Z  --+--   --+--   40/1    30/13    1/0    --+--   71/14   2976/738 
0100Z  10/6      -      3/1     6/0     3/0      -     22/7    2998/745   25
0200Z  14/9    26/13    3/0      -       -       -     43/22   3041/767 
0300Z  21/16    5/5      -       -       -       -     26/21   3067/788 
0400Z    -     10/3     5/2    52/3     3/1      -     70/9    3137/797 
0500Z  25/6     6/0      -     32/0      -       -     63/6    3200/803 
0600Z   1/2    52/1     6/1      -       -       -     59/4    3259/807 
0700Z    -       -       -      4/1      -       -      4/1    3263/808   51
0800Z  --+--   --+--   --+--   --+--   --+--   --+--    0/0    3263/808   60
0900Z    -       -       -       -       -       -      0/0    3263/808   60
1000Z    -      5/0      -      5/0      -       -     10/0    3273/808   44
1100Z    -      1/2     7/2    51/1    85/4      -    144/9    3417/817 
1200Z    -       -       -      4/4    86/5    91/7   181/16   3598/833 
1300Z    -       -       -       -     10/4   196/3   206/7    3804/840 
1400Z    -       -       -       -     68/4   108/9   176/13   3980/853 
1500Z    -       -       -       -     35/1    97/6   132/7    4112/860 
1600Z  --+--   --+--   --+--   --+--  115/1    39/0   154/1    4266/861 
1700Z    -       -       -     34/5    85/4     3/2   122/11   4388/872 
1800Z    -       -       -    116/0    10/1     2/0   128/1    4516/873 
1900Z    -       -       -    102/0      -     15/1   117/1    4633/874 
2000Z    -       -       -     85/1      -     16/2   101/3    4734/877 
2100Z    -       -     94/7     9/0      -      4/0   107/7    4841/884 
2200Z    -       -    102/0     7/3      -       -    109/3    4950/887 
2300Z    -     10/0    57/1     5/0      -       -     72/1    5022/888 

Tot:  106/79  502/120 1163/164 1100/182 1142/175 1009/168

Most worked countries:

          160M    80M    40M    20M    15M    10M   Total
    DL       6     67    184    148    156    135     696
    EA       3      9     36     39     32     24     143
     F       1      9     21     25     31     28     115
     G       7     15     58     47     48     47     222
    HA       1     16     26     22     31     23     119
     I             17     56     62     54     44     233
    JA                     6     57     29     11     103
    OK       5     32     41     28     53     39     198
    PA       1      7     30     39     28     22     127
    S5       2     10     28     25     22     22     109
    SM       2     10     24     22     19     28     105
    SP       2     16     52     40     53     44     207
    UA       3     52     85     75    119    114     448
    UR       3     29     67     24     70     54     247
    VE      12     25     38     21     10     14     120
</pre>


6 bands (37 stations!!!)
4O3A 4V1JR 6Y6N 8P5A 9A1A 9K2HN 9Y4/VE3EY CN2AA CR3A DF0HQ DF3FS DR1A EA5KA
EI1Y HC2AO/8 HI3A HK1NA HR2J II9P J6/DL7VOG LX7I LZ9W NP2X NP4Z OM7M OR2F PJ2T
PJ4A SO9Q TM6M V26K VC7M VE2IM VP2MDX VP9/N3AD ZD8O ZF1A

5 bands (58 stations!)
6W1RW 9A1P 9A2BD A71BX CR3L CR6K DK4M DL0GL DL0UM DL2VWR DL3YM DL5KUD DL6RAI
DL8ZAW DM8T DR4A DR5N G4DDL G5O G5W GD6IA GM5A HA5PT HC1WDT HD2A HG1S HG7T IB9T
IO1T IZ4DLR KH7XX LY4A LY7A LZ5R M6W OH2XX OH4MDY OK2D OL6P OQ5M OX3OA P33W P40W
PZ5AV RM5A RT3F RZ1OK SN3R SP2LNW SV1ENG TC0A UA4Z UI5F UW3E UX4U YL2SM YT0A
YU5R


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