[SECC] NR5M CQWW SSB w/ guest op KB4KBS/5

[Scott Straw]

CQ Worldwide DX Contest, SSB

Call: NR5M
Operator(s): NR5M K5GA KU5B K5MQ N5YA K5QE 
KJ5T N5XJ NX5M W5KFT N5OAO K5NZ KB4KBS/5 KZ5KG

Station: NR5M

Class: M/M HP
QTH: 
Operating Time (hrs): 48

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:  244    16       34
   80:  445    25       85
   40: 1126    33      119
   20: 1409    38      151
   15: 1441    34      140
   10:  278    13       40
------------------------------
Total: 4943   159      569  Total Score = 7,777,224

Comments by KB4KBS/5:

I missed the initial attack on Friday night, but arrived around 2130CT Saturday night and stayed for the remainder.  I was able to do some good on the bands for about 5 hours then took a four hour nap.  For the final 12 hours, we were able to keep most all of the "live" bands active all of the time.  The roster lists 14 players which seems like a lot, but the truth is, we could have used a few more at different times.  A 48 hour radio-sport marathon is a grueling crucible.  By the time Sunday afternoon rolled around, the running stations were giving out more Zone 4 contacts for domestic stations than collecting DX points, and the S&P stations were reduced to watching the spotting lists for new stations,  It was nice to know that we had the dB gain we needed to wade through the pile-ups for new mults.

We missed a zone sweep by 2 on 20M, 6 on 15M and 7 on 40M.  To log 105 of 120 zones on the "money bands" is a nice fete.  The biggest bell ring was reserved for a DL on 160M (double mult) with about 15 minutes to go in the contest.  The lesson learned from this was to use every band you have as much as you can.

My personal highlight was working a VU for the much-needed double-multiplier number 37 on 20M.  The big surprise was the 15M band being so wide open. The 10M and 160M bands were a pleasant find as well.

When this station goes QRV for the CW session, hold on! I'm convinced that most of these guys are better CW ops than SSBers, so I will be expecting even greater scores if the band conditions hold.

Scott KB4KBS/5

Scott Straw, CTS-D, CTS-I, EMT-I
AVI-SPL
Houston, Texas USA