[nrv-hams] ARRL DX Phone contest this weekend

[Kay Craigie]

I'm looking forward to Saturday breakfast at Shoney's in Dublin (8 am) on
Saturday, followed by the band-pass filter session (episode 2) at the Dublin
Fire House. In addition to those club activities, there's even more fun to
be had with ham radio this weekend. The ARRL International DX Contest,
phone, starts at 0000 UTC Saturday (That's 7 pm our local time on Friday
night) and ends at 2359 UTC Sunday (6:59 pm Sunday local time).

In this contest, Americans and Canadians work the rest of the world. Don't
call stations in the USA (except for Alaska and Hawaii) or in Canada.
Stations in Alaska, Hawaii, US Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and other US
territories that are not among the lower 48 states are fair game, however.

The exchange (what you send and receive) is not complicated. You send a
signal report and your state (the state name or the 2-letter abbreviation in
standard international phonetics) and you copy the other station's signal
report and power. So if I work XE1KK, the contact might sound like this:

I send "five nine Victor Alpha" or "five nine Virginia" and he sends "five
nine kilowatt." Or whatever his power level is. 

If you don't plan to submit an entry, you really don't have to log the power
information, but try doing it just for the practice. Contesting develops the
ability to hear well under noisy conditions, which could come in handy
during an emergency when the ability to dig a signal out of bedlam could be
a life-saving skill.

Propagation conditions on 10 meters were not the best in the CW contest but
15 meters was excellent. A good tip for contesting and DXing is to work the
highest band that's open. In the daytime, that means start on 10 meters. If
it's dead or you've worked everybody who can hear you, then go to 15, then
20. The 10 meter band can pop open without warning, so check it every so
often to see if it has come alive while you were on another band.

Additional info about the contest is at http://www.arrl.org/arrl-dx.

See you at the band-pass filter session, and good luck in the contest!

73 - Kay N3KN