CQWW USA: K5ZD, K1BX HOLD ONTO STRONG SSB LEADS

By Jamie Dupree NS3T, radio-sport.net 

Still in the top ten worldwide, Randy Thompson K5ZD looks to be on his way to victory in the US section of the 2007 CQWW DX SSB Contest, as he holds on to an 800,000 point lead over second place Rich DiDonna NN3W.

Thompson made over 2800 of his 3,649 contacts on 15 and 20 meters, as the high bands provided contesters with better than expected conditions.

"Never expected 15 meters to be so good," said Thompson. "Never expected 10 meters to open to Europe!"

One look at Thompson's rate sheet shows that propagation was a bit better than most had expected for the SSB test.

"Biggest surprise for me was the rates," admitted Thompson. "17 hours over 100. Had a 193 hour Saturday morning and a 176 and 188 hours back to back on Sunday. That is rocking."

Things were going so well on the first night, that he "had to make myself stop and go to bed."

And if you think that all top operators like Thompson do is call CQ for 48 hours, that's not the way this contest works.

"I mostly did S&P at night. Couldn't get answers to CQ's, so had to go find them myself," said Thompson.

Thompson slept two hours the first night and five hours the second, a trade off that the veteran contester said was worth it.

"The way conditions sounded, I figured the sleep would be worth more than 100 QSOs. I think it was a good decision as I felt great and had high energy all day on Sunday," said Thompson.

For now, the top five US operators in CQWW SSB include K5ZD in first, NN3W second, N1LI (K1DG) third, K4ZW fourth and K3CR (LZ4AX) fifth.

Ken Claerbout K4ZW finished second to NN3W in 2006, this time around he put together 4.8 million points, good for fourth place.

"I had a great time and the NR4M station played very well," said Claerbout. "But from a competitive standpoint, I feel like I came up short."

"I feel like my strategy is sound," but Claerbout said he clearly still needs to grind out more on 20. "Looks like I came up short on 20 meters again."

Meanwhile, it looks like there will be a new winner for in the US low power category for the first time in four years, as Art Hambleton K1BX shifted over from Assisted just before the start and now has the LP lead with 1.75 million points.

Three time defending champ Ed Sawyer is in second, with a claimed score of 1.45 million points.

Hambleton and Sawyer were the only US low power ops to go over a thousand contacts in this year's SSB test, with N5AW just short of that mark at 992. N4TZ/9 and K2PS fill out the low power top five in the USA.

The QRP leader is Doug Zwiebel KR2Q; the Assisted leader is K3OO.