[FCARC] The Ohio ARES VHF Contest

[Steve Bellner]

The Ohio ARES VHF Contest
January 14, 2023
Purpose:
ARES is tasked with being able to provide communications “When all else
fails.” Local communication is critical and typically takes place on the
VHF or UHF amateur band. In order to improve our ability to perform on
these bands, Ohio Section ARES is sponsoring the ARES VHF Contest (Yeah, we
know, but calling it the Ohio VHF / UHF Contest
got a little long-winded). Participants in the contest are encouraged to
make as many contacts as possible within the timeframe of the contest, with
as many different geographical locations as the bands permit. The contest
is open to all amateur operators, ARES members are strongly encouraged to
participate. How else are you going to win the ‘bragging rights’ session of
your next ARES meeting?
When did you say it was?

The contest is January 14, 2023. The start time is (for those of us who
sleep in) 10 AM through 4 PM Eastern. Yeah, a civilized timeframe that
doesn’t rob sleep, and allows time with the family. Why, you can even watch
a few cartoons in the morning!
Please register at https://ohsimplex.org/submit-operation/

Where you gonna be?
You may operate this contest from anywhere. There are certain benefits for
venturing out from your warm, comfortable home station. EOC stations can
gain extra points. Portable stations can gain even MORE extra points – that
is, if your frozen fingers will still be able to operate a keyboard.
Portable stations MUST use portable antennas, nothing permanently
attached...kind of like Field Day on ice. We are not going with any mobile
operation this time. The image of a bunch of vehicles running around with
portable towers, 150 pounds of antenna hardware and an occasional grounding
anchor is best left to the ARRL contesters.

Da Bands – a la’ Mode
Because local emergency communication takes place primarily on the two
meter and 70
centimeter bands, the contest is limited to those two bands.
Within each band, we will have these modes: FM Simplex, “Everything else”
Simplex; DIGITAL simplex contacts will make up a third mode on each band.
Contacts with a station count once per mode- if you can talk the other guy
into abandoning “his frequency” and meeting you on SSB or CW, more power to
ya!

NO REPEATER CONTACTS WILL COUNT. If you get bored, you certainly are
welcome to chat amongst yourselves on repeaters, or simplex, or cell
phones, or smoke signals.

Da Contacts
The goal is to contact as many different stations in as many different
counties as possible. You can make as many overall contacts as you like,
they will then be multiplied by the number of counties you’ve reached.
Extra points will be available for contacting an EC, AEC, DEC, ADEC, ASEC
or SEC. Pretty simple- any more complex and we’ll confuse the scorekeepers.

Da Score
Each FM Simplex contact counts as 1 point.
Each non- FM simplex contact counts as 1 point.
Each digital simplex contact counts as 1 point. (Detect a pattern here?)
Contact with EC, AEC, DEC, ADEC, ASEC or SEC adds 10 points.
Contact with an EOC or with a portable station adds 5 points.
Operation from an EOC add 200 points to your total contact score.
Operation from a portable location add 100 points to your total contact
score.
Total contact score (all bands/modes added together) will be multiplied by
the total number of counties you contacted. To name a few

Da Logs
Please use any of the appropriate computer logging programs, paper dupe
sheets, a well worn slide rule or rusty abacus. Just keep all that to
yourself, we can’t find anyone with the time to go through all the detail
contacts. For more information and log submission, please visit
https://ohsimplex.org If you need an antenna, here is a J-Pole that you can
make: https://w8wky.org/simple-j-pole-
antenna/