[HCRA] Intersting Article for us hams

[Larry - WB1DBY]

Hi All,

When I was doing Zero Beat, I would include Dan's columns once a month. I still get them and found this one interesting and thought you all might enjoy it. I'll forward more here as they come in each month or so.

73,

Larry, WB1DBY





Hi, folks--

Here's my column for October 2011.

73!

Dan KB6NU



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You Can Enjoy Contests Even If You're Not a Contester

By Dan Romanchik, KB6NU

I often talk to guys who say that they're not contesters. Some even go so far as to say that they hate contests. I'm really not a contester, either, but I do enjoy operating them from time to time. There are several ways to enjoy amateur radio contests even if you're not a "contester."

This weekend, for example, the CQ World-Wide (CQWW) SSB DX contest was being held. As usual for a Saturday morning, I was down at WA2HOM (www.wa2hom.org), our club station at the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum (www.aahom.org). Now, the museum is only open from 10am - 5pm on Saturdays, so there's no way I'm going to score very highly in the contest, but I still decided to participate.

What I did was take advantage of the contest activity to add countries to our DXCC list. Over two hours of operation, I managed to make 63 contacts, including at least five new countries. The new countries that I added to our log included Iceland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, the Cayman Islands, and Madeira Island. 

None of these is rare DX, but for whatever reason, we hadn't worked them before. Now, we have. In addition, some of the big contesters will travel to exotic locales and operate from places that normally have no or few ham radio operators. Contests are good opportunities to get those countries in your log.

Operating in a contest is also a good test of your radio and antennas. It's true that contest signal reports are basically meaningless, but if DX stations regularly hear you on your first or second call, then chances are your antennas are working well. If they're continually asking for repeats or never hear you at all, it's a good bet that you need to do some antenna work.

Working a contest can also improve your operating skills. In a CW contest, for example, the good ops are generally operating at 25+ words per minute. That's OK, though, because it forces you to copy that fast, and because you know what the exchange format is, you pretty much know what characters to expect. Try it sometime. You'll be surprised at how fast you can copy during a contest and how much your CW speed improves.

If none of the above reasons convince you, and you're still a bit apprehensive about jumping into one of the bigger contests, let me suggest that you try one of the smaller contests. State QSO parties, for example, are a lot more laid back than say the ARRL Sweepstakes. The CW speeds are a lot lower and the phone contacts are a lot less intense. You may even learn something about a particular state's geography. You will for sure learn a lot of county names.

It's all about having fun. And you can have fun in a contest, even if you don't have the time or the equipment to be competitive.  

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When not worrying about the proper county code for Goochland County, Virginia, Dan blogs about ham radio at www.kb6nu.com, teaches ham classes, and ragchews on 30m and 40m CW. You can e-mail him with comments or questions at cwgeek at kb6nu.com.

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