Q5 Worldwide Ham Radio

The Contest Crew is back—Randy K5ZD, Dan N6MJ, Chris KL9A, and Bill W9KKN—fresh off the IARU HF World Championship. From broken antennas and overheated shacks to surprise guest ops and last-minute tech rescues, this episode captures the contest highs, lows, and hard-won wisdom only this crew can deliver.

Dan N6MJ’s operation from the legendary N2QV station in New York almost didn’t happen. After casually mentioning on a previous Q5...

The ISTRA Contest Conference is taking place October 9–12th in Poreč, Croatia, and Braco E77DX, Mirko 9A6KX, and Dave 9A1UN are here to tell us all about it. Born from late-night conversations and a desire for deeper community, the ISTRA Contest Conference is quickly becoming Europe’s most vital gathering of contest operators. What started as a bold idea between friends has evolved—despite COVID delays—into a globally attended, thr...

Our Contest Crew Europe introductions continue with Kris Kass ES7GM, also known by ES7A. Kris is a third-generation Estonian ham radio operator whose story arcs from Soviet-era restrictions to modern contesting excellence. Raised in a family where CW was practically a second language—his grandfather operated behind the Iron Curtain as UR2GT (during Soviet times, all of Estonia used the UR2 prefix)—Kris made his first CW contact at ...

Dave Kucelin 9A1UN, also known by his contest call 9A1P, is one of the most accomplished HF contesters in Croatia and the tenacious force behind a station that’s endured devastating storms, unresolvable land disputes, and a rotating cast of club members—all while racking up thousands of QSOs. In this episode, Dave opens up about building (and rebuilding) the 9A1P contest station, a decades-long project that started with five-elemen...

Sven Lovric DJ4MX is part of a new wave of contesters and DXpeditioners reshaping what youth, excellence, and ambition look like in ham radio today. At just 23, he’s already logged pileups from Guyana and the remote Pacific outpost of the Marshall Islands. Whether operating as 8R7X or V73WW, Sven thrives in the thick of it—chasing signals from the other side of the globe, running high-rate phone pileups, and mastering CW through sh...

Mike Larsmark SJ2W is one of Europe’s premier contest station builders—an operator who pairs deep technical skill with long-term investment and a clear vision for finding a competitive edge from the far northern Swedish countryside.

Licensed at 15, Larsmark jumped into contesting early and never looked back. He credits Contest Crew member Randy Thompson K5ZD as an early influence, whose writeups helped him understand what it meant ...

Braco E77DX is the driving force behind the first-ever Contest Crew: Europe Edition—a project built on the momentum and format created by the original Contest Crew: Randy K5ZD, Dan N6MJ, Chris KL9A, Bill W9KKN, and Dr. Scott Wright K0MD. Together, they set the tone for what this series became: smart, unscripted, and genuinely fun. Their candid, strategy-rich conversations quickly became essential viewing for contesters and helped b...

In this episode, the Contest Crew—Randy K5ZD, Dan N6MJ, and Bill W9KKN—turns their attention to the IARU HF World Championship, a 24-hour sprint that’s more than just a summertime curiosity. It’s a deceptively technical contest: the rules are simple, but the path to a top score is anything but. As Randy lays out the structure and quirks—zones, headquarters stations, multiplier strategy, and the peculiar propagation patterns that em...

Les Chalfant KI5GTR is the kind of operator who reminds us what Parks on the Air is all about. From zero to full-throttle in just a few years, Les has activated all 286 parks in Arkansas, is closing in on 700 unique park activations overall, and still found time to earn a serious contest plaque from his home QTH—Rookie Overlay #1 in the U.S. for the 2024 CQ Worldwide SSB Contest. Whether he’s logging 200 contacts from a forest clea...

ARRL Field Day is here—and whether you’re running 100 watts on a hilltop with a friend, part of a multi-operator 6A club effort, or setting up a 1B in your backyard, it’s one of the most beloved events in ham radio. In the latest Contest Crew episode, Randy Thompson K5ZD, Daniel Craig N6MJ, Christopher Hurlbut KL9A, and Bill Fehring W9KKN share their Field Day plans and reflect on why this weekend means so much to hams of all kinds...

Jeff Steinman N5TJ is one of amateur radio’s most accomplished contesters—a four-time WRTC medalist and the current holder of the all-time CQWW SSB world record, set from EA8BH in 1999. His contesting journey began with responding to a classified ad in QST by Lou K4VX that led to mentorship, a teenage single-op debut, and more than 50 return visits as a guest operator. That foundation—combined with decades of strategic refinement—h...

Randy Thompson K5ZD is a world-class contester, but in this episode, he turns his attention to one of the fastest-growing events in ham radio: the World Wide Award (WWA). With the July Sprint just days away, Randy explains how WWA evolved from a WRTC beta test into a global scavenger hunt for activators and chasers—not a contest, but just as thrilling. WWA emphasizes daily contacts, real-time scoring, and broad participation across...

Manfred Wolf DJ5MW is one of Europe’s most consistent and respected contesters—earning five WRTC qualifications and podium finishes in 2014, 2018 and 2023. Based in Germany’s scenic “three countries corner,” he operates from a former ski jump tower outfitted with a modest but highly effective antenna setup. In this wide-ranging conversation, we trace his path from teenage CB enthusiast to world-class operator, with reflections on e...

Kay Savetz K6KJN is saving ham radio—sort of. Not by answering the big question of how we build the future, but by preserving the proof that it all ever happened—and why it mattered, and still does. As curator of the Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications (DLARC), Kay has quietly assembled the most ambitious archive in the hobby’s history: over 155,000 items, 20 terabytes of newsletters, manuals, magazines, callbooks...

Sebastian Delmont KI2D is the creator of PoLo—the open-source portable logger from Ham2K that’s become a favorite among Parks on the Air activators. What began as a side project to streamline his own field operations has grown into a widely adopted logging tool for portable ops. With a clean interface, fast logging, and offline capability, PoLo captures the rhythm of real-world radio—from trail to tailgate. Originally from Venezuel...

Randy K5ZD, Chris KL9A, and Bill W9KKN are… answering your questions in this special Contest Crew Inbox edition. From the top: Yes, Randy’s new Ohio station is coming along. Listeners wanted an update—and he delivered, sharing the goals behind his build (spoiler: he claims he's not chasing top-five scores—we’re not so sure) and the practical decisions that led to twin 80-foot towers. Chris checked in from Montana with a progress re...

Helmut Mueller DF7EE is a contest category tactician with a past passion for portable ops—and another of ham radio’s great storytellers. Operating from Germany and often Madeira Island (CT3 has been getting a lot of airtime lately!), Helmut has earned top scores in major contests—not by outgunning the high-power field, but by strategically selecting entry categories that give him a competitive edge. In this wide-ranging conversatio...

Braco E77DX is a man who doesn’t flinch— not at a chaotic pileup, not in a storm, and certainly not when a contest weekend kicks off with him climbing towers solo on a cloud-shrouded Cape Verde mountaintop. In this episode, he walks us through the behind-the-scenes grind of his (unofficial) second-place finish in the 2025 CQ WPX CW Single Op High Power All Band category—a race where the real drama wasn’t just on the scoreboard, but...