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Ham Radio Operating

Ham radio contesting

[Today’s run: 2 miles with wife and dog]

Last weekend was the CQ Magazine Worldwide DX Sideband contest.  Next weekend is the ARRL CW Sweepstakes.  At the end of the month is the CQ WWDX CW contest.

There are contests of some sort almost every weekend but this stretch through November holds some of the bigger ones.

I don’t do a lot of serious contesting.  But I do enjoy participating in the Sweepstakes and a few of the others, mostly the CW and VHF ones.  They are a good opportunity to get in some serious code practice and maybe pick up some DX (foreign stations).

Contests will each have their own set of rules.  Generally what you are doing is making short contacts with as many stations as possible.  There may be time limits on when you can operate.  There are usually power output limits. They will have some sort of defined conversation or exchange that you have to perform with all of the stations you connect to.  The idea is to make it not too strenuous, but a definite exchange of information so that no one can turn in a log of phony activity.

Logs.  If you want to be scored in the contest you turn in a log of your contacts with the exchanged information for each.  The contest organizers usually want a computer formatted log (there are a few well defined formats).  They can feed those into a database and do cross checking.  Yes, there are people who will cheat if they can.

I have zero chance of winning any given contest, but certain ones have a particular style of activity  (ARRL Sweepstakes) or bring out the  rare operations.  And I enjoy participating a little bit.

As in any hobby, there are people who have a lot of extra money and are willing to spend it to build a winning station.   I can’t compete with that.  But what I do get is a time-compressed conglomeration of interesting stations wanting to talk to me.   All of those guys with the winning stations need guys like me to participate in the contest.   In a foot race a lone runner can win.  But in a radio contest you have to have contacts.  So the king of the hill has to have the cooperation of lots of other stations.  Meaning, he wants to talk to any little-bitty squeak-mouse, chirpy, swoopy, drifty station he can possibly find.   (It’s nice to be needed.)

Another angle is the traveling contester.  You can _rent_ a good station in a place like Aruba or the Galapagos Islands (or North Dakota), as a vacation.  Your family can go see all the sites while you sit in a little building making an enormous number of radio contacts day and night.  Sound like fun?