[3830] CQWW SSB N5DX(@K5GO/N5DX) SOAB HP

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                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, SSB

Call: N5DX
Operator(s): N5DX
Station: K5GO/N5DX

Class: SOAB HP
QTH: AR
Operating Time (hrs): 46
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:   36    13       20
   80:   93    21       57
   40:  631    29       81
   20:  694    35      111
   15:  928    32      106
   10: 1875    36      106
------------------------------
Total: 4257   166      481  Total Score = 7,641,717

Club: 

Comments:

Two comments were made by family members on Thursday evening that were stuck in
my head going into the contest.

8 year old daughter: "Daddy, why does it take you a month to get ready for
the contest?"

60+ year old father: "It will be a miracle if nothing breaks."

Not to many good vibes to be had by those two thought processes running through
my head.  I even told my wife that maybe I should just take up basketball again
(being 6' 6" has its advantages).  All of those thoughts were erased when
I sat down to the radio to hear what were just incredible conditions.  Its very
rare from Arkansas to be faced with the legitimate option of beginning the
contest on  10, 15, 20, or 40 meters.  Really cool to be running Asia on 10
meters while picking off EU mults on 80 and 160.

Other than the first 1.5 hours I feel like I did a really good job of
maximizing score.  EU was easy to work on 160 and 80 but not good enough to
run.  20 was open all night, but other than Friday evening, I never had any
real night time runs on that band.  JA on 40 was paltry.

I was amazed at everyone's willingness to move to different bands for needed
multipliers.  Great fun to build up the multiplier total that way.  Despite
this, I probably missed 30 easy mults on 10, 15, and 20 meters that could have
been obtained with more efficient tuning and a more balanced distribution of
QSOs between 10 and 15 meters.  

Probably should have stayed on 20 a little longer in the morning to allow the
second radio to comb through 15 to find juicy multipliers.  Then moving to 15
and staying a little longer to do the same scenario on 10 meters.  I perhaps
stayed on 10 meters a little to long in the morning while running EU.  The zone
14 guys just kept pouring in and with good signals.  With a clear frequency on
10, it was really hard to make myself QSY to 15 to dig out a run spot.    

I can count on my hands the number of CQWW SSB contest I've operated and of
those operations this was only my second single op operation.  What a memorable
one it will be.  

I knew going into the contest that I would have some big time W5 competition. 
Knowing this pushed me hard to max out every minute of operating time and it is
a satisfying feeling to have given the contest everything I had.  Congrats to
Steve, N2IC, for setting a new W5 record.

Nothing broke and the contest was certainly worth all the time that was put
into it.



73,
Kevin, N5DX


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