I was thinking of writing something for the club to prepare for this weekend’s ARRL 10M Contest, but the Florida Contest Group did it for me.  Attached is a bunch of slides that were presented, and much of it should be useful to our TVARC stations.

Remember, we can contact stations on CW and/or SSB.  More activity will be found on CW since the points for those QSOs are double those for SSB.  I’ve found that, especially Friday night, that you may not find all that much SSB activity.  But that should change by later on Saturday, when stations operating Mixed (CW and SSB) will need to find those multipliers on SSB (can work stations on CW and SSB, and mults are per mode).

Don’t be afraid to call CQ, at least on SSB.  It can be quite exhilarating to have a whole bunch of stations call you.  Just calmly pick out one at a time, give them your 59 Florida, copy the response and say thanks, QRZ and your call.  Easy!

Look also for other TVARCers, since we’ll be able to work one another – and maybe, later in the contest, when contacts are getting harder to come by, we can suggest working each other on the other mode.

Right now, solar flux is up to 150, so if it can hold up there than we should have some great propagation.

Good luck all and 73,

Pete, K2PS