[SMCARA] Contesting Strategies - Part 1

[Tom Shelton]

One of the ways you can increase your final score in any contest is to go into that contest with a strategy.  For example, the CQ WW contests are have dual multipliers which are fairly easy to obtain.  Many of my contesting friends have told me they try to keep their QSO to Multiplier ratio at or near 1:1 for these contests.  That way, as the contest progresses, each contact becomes more valuable.   For November Sweepstakes, you aren’t trying to reach out to a lot of DX stations.  Rather, you are trying to work U.S. and Canadian Hams, so your “money bands” are going to be 40 and 80 meters, overnight and into the morning.  Making sure you have good wires on those bands, and adjust your operating hours (take a long nap in the afternoon), you’ll increase your number of QSOs and multipliers.  We start by going over the rules.

Since the ARRL 10 Meter contest is coming up next weekend, let’s go over the rules for that contest and discuss some possible strategies.  



Starting with the Date and Time of the contest: (the actual rule will start with the rule paragraph from the ARRL site – my comments will follow)  



2.  Date and Contest Period: Second full weekend of December. Starts 0000 UTC Saturday; ends 2359 UTC Sunday (December 10 - 11, 2011).  



Since (on the east coast) we currently have a 5 hour shift from UTC, the contest begins for us at 1900 on Friday and ends at 1859 on Sunday.   I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone to my shack to do the final preparations for the contest, and an hour or two prior to the actual start of the contest, you can find stations that are making the contest exchange.  Any contacts you make before the contest won’t be counted, so make sure your clocks are set correctly and you’ve made the proper UTC/EST/EDT adjustment.

2.1. All stations operate no more than 36 hours out of the 48-hour period.

This won’t be much of a problem during the 10 meter contest as during the 48 hours of the contest, finding 10 meters open for 36 of them will be a stretch.  What you want to do is maximize your “butt-in-chair” time (BIC).  It should go without saying that you want your “on-time” to coincide with when the band is open.  Knowing that 10 meters is basically day-light band, you should plan your operating time for just before sunrise to just after sunset.  Of course, if conditions allow, keep operating as late as you can.  Sunset on Friday will be at 4:46PM, so give a listen at 7:00 to see if anyone is out there, work them if you can, but don’t expect a huge number.  Sunrise on Saturday is at 7:12AM and sunset is at 4:46PM.  You should have good conditions from about 6:00AM to about 6:00PM, giving you 12 hours of operating time.  Sunrise and sunset on Sunday are 7:13AM and 4:46PM, giving you another 12 hours of operating.  If you can operate these 24 hours (or a large part of them), you will have a quite respectable and competitive score.  So, have a comfortable chair and operating position, plan your social times (like the club Christmas dinner on Saturday night) accordingly, and be ready to put as much BIC time in as you can.

2.2. Listening time counts as operating time.

Although not specifically spelled out, generally any space in time between two contacts greater than 30 minutes is considered “off time.”  



I’ll take a look at operating categories with a post tomorrow. (don’t want to overwhelm the reflector)…


Tom Shelton, AB3IC 

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