[GCARC] ARRL 10 Meter Contest Starts Tonight

[Jon Pearce]

Great info, Tony - especially for new Technician class licensees who want to try the only HF band on which they have privileges.

If you want to use the club station tomorrow or Sunday please email me so that we can reserve it for local operation at a specific time for your use - otherwise it's available to remote users. We can have it set up tomorrow for use after the Tech Saturday session.

73 de Jon WB2MNF

-----Original Message-----
From: gcarc-bounces at mailman.qth.net <gcarc-bounces at mailman.qth.net> On Behalf Of Tony Starr
Sent: Friday, December 8, 2023 09:50
To: GLOUCESTER CLUB <gcarc at mailman.qth.net>
Subject: [GCARC] ARRL 10 Meter Contest Starts Tonight

The ARRL 10 Meter Contest

If you have always wanted to try your hand at operating a contest, but did not know where to start, the ARRL 10M Contest is a good choice, particularly when propagation is good. You don't need high power, or a big antenna, to do well on 10 meters, and the greater majority of your contacts will be in North America, so you should have very little problems with hearing weak signals.  The contest is dual mode or single mode, CW and/or SSB, your choice. The exchange is simple, just a signal report and your state, though DX stations will be sending a serial number, so be prepared to copy it, and anyone can work anyone, unlike the ARRL DX contests. You may contact a station once per mode, and multipliers also count once per mode.  Phone contacts are 2 points each, and CW contacts are 4, and as such, there is likely to be more activity on CW, so if you can copy even a little bit (or have a coder reader), you should give CW a try. Activity is likely to be much higher in the daytime than at night, due to the propagation characteristics of the 10M band. I have been hearing Europe coming through every morning this week, usually between the hours of 8 AM and 11 AM, give or take, so if you can only do a couple of hours a day, and want to work some DX, do it before lunch time. South America should be good late in the afternoon until just after our sunset, and the possibility to work JA and other Asian stations during this same time period certainly should not be ruled out. You will also have a great opportunity to fill in some blanks for your 10M WAS, if that award is what you seek.

The contest starts tonight at 0000z, that's 7 PM local time, and continues for 48 hours until Sunday. Any station can work up to 36 hours of that period, and off times must be 30 minutes or more.  A simple CB antenna like the IMAX 2000 or A99 can be pretty effective, and 100 watts can go a long way on 10m. If you don't have a home station, the W2MMD clubhouse station may be available for use after the Tech Saturday event. At this point in the sunspot cycle, the 10M band is doing pretty well, but in a few more years, it is likely to peak and then go into a long decline, becoming more like a VHF band, so if you have a desire to work new states or countries on 10, do not delay, or you may miss your window. It took me nearly 5 years to work 10M DXCC during the period between 2015 and 2020, and now I can routinely do it in one weekend of a major DX contest. Yes, the difference is that extreme. As I said, don't put it off, get on there now and work what you can. I hope to work many of you this weekend in your first 10M contest. Until then, 73.

de K3TS
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