When taking notes at the end of the contest — what went well and what could have been better — what should you consider for inclusion?
Here’s a short trigger list for what you can learn from every contest:
Equipment
Radio working properly
Amplifier working properly
Keyer working properly
Computer issues
Contesting software issues
Interface issues
Rotor box issues
Antennas
Each antenna, each band notes
Directional weakness [...]
Sleep deprivation also impacts the productivity and performance of teams. This, from Bob Sutton, in Sleep Deprivation and Group Performance. While the point of view of sleep deprivation is on business teams, I think it directly applies to ham radio multi-operator contesting teams as well. Especially those that have not operated together often enough to [...]
Do you want to find out about the set-up at your favorite ham radio contesting station? Well, you can through the voluntary efforts of the contesting station owners and the Contest Stations website. Pete, N4ZR, and Mike, NF4L, have been working hard on updating the site making it easier for contest station owners and users [...]
We’re coming to the end of the major contests this spring ham radio contesting season. Did you contest on your terms?
It is an important question because contesting is a diverse activity within the ham radio hobby. For example, this year we have the Triple Play Award offered up by the American Radio Relay League. Contesting [...]
Only in ham radio can we put up random letters in a title and have it mean something specific to readers…but I digress.
I was able to spend an hour and a half or so this weekend on the contest — and had a great time. With my pipsqueak station and antenna, I mostly worked Japan [...]
This is the first CQ WW SSB Contest I have listened to from this location. And the comparison to my previous location is striking.
This location is much worse for ham radio than the one I had about four miles from here — it is lower, on the side of a hill, with another hill due [...]
Here’s a good idea (via the ARRL Letter):
We here at ARRL HQ are excited over the theme of October’s QST — radiosport! In addition to feature and technical articles focusing on contesting — ranging from the history of radiosport to a product review of a rig geared for the avid contester and DX’er — ARRL [...]
There is some good commentary going on about the ARRL posting of the ARRL International DX Phone contest results on the contest reflector.
You will recall the original hullabaloo when either CQ or the ARRL (or both) said they were going to limit contest results printed in the magazines due to costs and move more [...]
Nice to be back on the air…
Worked into DU, JA, VK2, VK6, ZL, V31, KL7, KH6, and EA (a long way from Washington State in these conditions!) as well as North America.
Class: Single Operator, CW Only, High Power (400 Watts), Five Hours operating time.
Band
CW QSO’s
Zones
HQ Mults
40
70
15
2
20
32
6
1
15
8
2
0
Total
110
23
3
Total score: 6500
Conditions were poor here in the Pacific [...]
Contesting is a radio sport that requires the operator to have many specific skills. One of these skills is being able to handle the “rate” of callers coming back from your CQ. The faster you can handle a pileup, the more contacts go in the log helping the score.
But, where to start learning the “rate” [...]
It was a big contest weekend, at least here in the states with the ARRL VHF contest. Lots of people were out looking for elusive VHF openings and stations to work — and found them. Quickly perusing the scores this morning finds many stations worked over quite some distances. Amongst the floods of the [...]
The NEW HTML version of the Contest Rate Sheet is now out — and it is MUCH better than the old text version.
Of course, I’ve been on the web a long time and prefer the look of HTML to text.
Highlights:
Name change. Was the ARRL Contest Rate Sheet; now is The ARRL Contest Update
The top summary [...]
