[nrv-hams] ARRL November Sweepstakes

[Kay Craigie]

This coming weekend is the ARRL November Sweepstakes contest, SSB edition.
All 50 states will be on the air, plus Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands,
and all provinces of Canada. It's a great way to work more states for
awards.

It's an old contest, whose roots are in formal message-handling. The
exchange (what we send and receive) resembles the message header for a
radiogram, and the terminology comes from radiograms, too. It's long and
complicated, making Sweepstakes the most challenging ARRL contest of them
all. But you can do it, once you understand the lingo.

The contest begins at 2100 UTC on Saturday -- that's 4 pm local time -- and
ends at 0300 UTC on Monday -- that's 10 pm Sunday night local time. 

Unlike most contests, in which we can work stations over again when we
change bands, in Sweepstakes we can work a station only once. Keep this in
mind, so as not to irritate the serious competitors.

Okay, here's how the exchange works, using myself as an example. I will send
a sequential serial number, a letter indicating my station category
("precedence"), my callsign, the last 2 digits of the year I was first
licensed ("check"), and my ARRL section. My first contact will be number 1,
I will be using assistance from the online DX cluster so my "precedence"
will be U for "Unlimited," I was first licensed in 1983 so my "check" will
be 83, and I'm in Virginia.

So for my first contact in the contest, I will say:
1 Uniform N3KN 83 Virginia

The other operator might send me:
1 Bravo AA3B 75 EPA

Operators may use the same ARRL section abbreviations that we hear on Field
Day; "EPA" is Eastern Pennsylvania, for example.

How do you know what your "precedence" is? If you are running 150 watts or
less and not using any kind of spotting assistance, your precedence is A
(alpha). If your power is over 150 watts and you're not using any kind of
spotting assistance, your precedence is B (bravo). If you are using any kind
of assistance, regardless of your power level, your precedence is U
(uniform). Other precedences you will hear are Q (Quebec -- for QRP), M
(mike -- multiple operator station), and S (sierra -- school or college
station).

If you don't plan to turn in an entry, you don't have to write down the
whole exchange that others send to you, but try it out to get a taste of
what contesting was like in the days when we logged Sweepstakes with pencil
and paper. I can tell you, it was a bear. Just be sure to keep track of the
serial numbers you send so as not to duplicate them.

The goal of the contest is not only to rack up a lot of points but also to
try to work all the ARRL and Canadian sections. There are 83 of them. That's
called a "Clean Sweep." I've never achieved it, though I've come close a few
times.

As always, contesting is not done on 12, 17, and 30 meters, in case you'd
rather have fun of a different kind.

73, Kay N3KN