Posts from — September 2007

This month, I’m providing a ham radio contest tip-a-day (along with other posts) to help you trigger your own contesting activities.

Today’s tip: Find joy in contesting.

In this final installment of thirty ham radio contesting tips, it all comes down to joy.

Contesting is exceptionally challenging to operators. Contests, whether entered competitively or simply as an afternoon break on a Sunday, are demanding. Our equipment must work the way it was designed. Our computers need to have all of their interfaces working. Our bodies need to be in shape for the time we will spend contesting. Our operating skills need to be at the ready. And our head needs to be in the contest.

The great thing for me about contesting is this ability to let the rest of the trials and tribulations I may be experiencing in my life fall away for the duration of the contest. The contest, because of the focus on the operating, becomes the “flow” experience where time melts away.

The thrill of a monster contest run effortlessly handled, the elusive multiplier that gets snapped up by checking a long path propagation route, and the great honor of hearing those familiar calls once again on the air is the joy contesting brings to me.

So my final contesting tip is simple: find your joy in contesting.

Scot, K9JY

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This weekend I’m at the QTH of K7ZSD on the Smoke Mountain Ranch in Oregon for the CQ WW RTTY Contest. We’re using the callsign of Hank, KR7X, and operating Multi-two for the contest.

But it’s a tough one. Out here in 7-land, the QSO’s with EU are few and far between. JA’s have been loud — but few — and the rest of the world is pretty quiet with the sunspots being what they are right now.

My personal highlight from the overnight was working 9M6XRO on 80-meters. It took about three minutes to get the callsign to print, but 9M6XRO was patient to get the QSO delivered.

It’s cool outside, but the contesting is hot inside.

I’ll catch you on the flip side of Zulu.

Scot, K9JY

This month, I’m providing a ham radio contest tip-a-day (along with other posts) to help you trigger your own contesting activities.

Today’s tip: Participate on a contesting team.

One of the great things about some contests is having a “team” category. The idea is that a group of people can get together and form a contesting “team” and have each of their scores contribute to an overall team score for the contest.

This is differentiated from a club score because the team size is usually much less than the entire club effort and from a multi category in that each operator is operating as a single operator during the contest.

But, the overall score goes to a team.

The advantages of signing up for a team are pretty interesting:

• Your commitment to the contest increases. Because you are part of a team, you will spend more time in the contest.
• Your competitive nature will increase the score. Who wants to have the lowest score on the team?
• You will focus more on the score. Capture those elusive multipliers. Look for weird openings during the contest. Really up your contesting game.
• Have more fun. Teams often will instant message back and forth on how they are doing in the contest, keeping up the interest and the fun.

Besides, you can usually make up your own team name. There are some pretty interesting ones out there…

Scot, K9JY

This month, I’m providing a ham radio contest tip-a-day (along with other posts) to help you trigger your own contesting activities.

Today’s tip: Practice CW before contests.

When a contest starts, it’s fast and furious. When I first started contesting, I was always amazed at how fast the CW was for the stations doing the running.

Of course, I was no slouch at CW either, but even though I was on the air a lot and was into Morse Code, that wall of fast CW was hard to get used to after ensuring the station was setup right for the contest and everything (usually) checked out.

By the end of the contest, no matter what, I was also much faster at my CW speeds then I was before the contest started. There is a rhythm to CW and contests that takes over and helps the operator copy code.

Consequently, I started practicing my CW before the contest, just to get into the groove of the dits and dahs. Get a feel for the wall of CW that starts a contest.

Bring up Morse Runner and pop it up at 40-WPM with a little pileup and you’ll be rocking with the best of them come contest time.

Practice. It will help you penetrate that wall of CW at the start of a contest.

Scot, K9JY

J-38 Morse Code Key picture courtesy of Flickr.

This month, I’m providing a ham radio contest tip-a-day (along with other posts) to help you trigger your own contesting activities.

Today’s tip: Go on a contesting DXpedition.

For as long as I have been an amateur radio operator, I’ve wanted to go on DXpeditions. Fortunately, with the Cinco Nueve Contest Group, I’ve been able to go on a couple where I’ve gone out of the country and operated in contests.

But, you don’t have to leave the country to go on a “DXpedition.” While living in the Midwest, people took a trip to North and/or South Dakota to help put a needed multiplier on the air for Sweepstakes.

Last year, the Cinco Nueve Contest Group drove from Washington and Oregon to Idaho to put Idaho — a unique multiplier for the CQ WW RTTY Contest — on the air for the deserving.

Here are some good reasons to go to that relative rare one for a contest:

• The other end of pileups. Yes, they ARE different on the other end from where you’ve been calling for your entire ham radio career. How to handle them is a skill you will need to quickly learn.
• Speed of operation. Because you are rarer in the contest, the activity stays up longer and operates faster. If you are familiar with “speed” in sports, then you’ll be able to relate that DXpeditions up your speed game.
• Logistics. Picking up everything and going somewhere to operate provides a completely new set of challenges. Going through the logistics experience helps you understand what is important for operating — helping you set priorities for your own station back home.
• Motivation for the contest. You made the trip. You are more likely to be committed to the contest then if you were surrounded by all of the comfort — and tasks — of home.

Going on a contest DXpedition aren’t for everyone, of course. But if you get the opportunity, my suggestion is GO. You’ll learn a lot.

Scot, K9JY