Ham Radio Contests....opinions....

[SR385]

just got a qsl card from v73px, a dxpediton station on kwajalein atoll
near the marshall islands thats the south pacific to the uninitiated
i worked them on april thirteenth this year on 17 mtrs ssb phone
if recall correctly i went to 18.130 after running into contesters on 20mtrs
ive also worked hawaii and guam this year on 17 mtrs
all at the bottom of a solar cycle
there is more going on,on 17 than you might think !

Oh yeah I like 17m for sure, it's the rag-chew version of 20m, but propagation is mostly DX and unstable. It's almost never open at night at this point too.

75m and 160m on the other hand are pretty consistently open for regional contacts for night after night rag chews with the same group of people. There are no functional alternatives to those bands during contests.

I like 17m enough that I've considered putting up a monster long boom monoband yagi for the band since the type of contacts there are what I like most and I would be exceptionally QRV for that band. I keep flipping the coin as to whether I want yet another compromise antenna or to put more eggs in a basket that will work well for my QTH and give me an exceptional signal for a single band rather than a halfway o.k. signal on three or so.

 

[N9RZD]

Oh yeah I like 17m for sure, it's the rag-chew version of 20m, but propagation is mostly DX and unstable. It's almost never open at night at this point too.

75m and 160m on the other hand are pretty consistently open for regional contacts for night after night rag chews with the same group of people. There are no functional alternatives to those bands during contests.

I like 17m enough that I've considered putting up a monster long boom monoband yagi for the band since the type of contacts there are what I like most and I would be exceptionally QRV for that band. I keep flipping the coin as to whether I want yet another compromise antenna or to put more eggs in a basket that will work well for my QTH and give me an exceptional signal for a single band rather than a halfway o.k. signal on three or so.

its definitely become my favorite , its quiet , not prone to atmospheric
and either you hear them or you dont ,
im still in the process of building a cubical quad for 17 out of fiberglass poles and wire ,
i'll get some pics up soon ,

my point is , that there are plenty of other things that you can do with
this hobby besides dodging contesters

 

[N9RZD]

Wasn't slamming you sir, I did say "In all due respect to you and your opinion" did I not.....?
I was simply conducting a friendly debate on the subject, no different than if we were sitting around the kitchen table, sipping a cold beverage, and discussing our differences of opinion about this.

You stated what it is that you do, and that works for you, I'm good with that. However what works for you obviously doesn't work for me, or perhaps others who feel the same as I, and that was the point I was trying to make.
No bashing intended.....

fair enough , but i wont be drawn into a point of view debate
you asked what i do and for my opinion, you have it
thats what i do

Peace

 

[WX2MIG]

fair enough , but i wont be drawn into a point of view debate
you asked what i do and for my opinion, you have it
thats what i do

Peace

Peace and Merry Christmas to you N9RZD.....

If you or anyone else would be so kind as to refresh my memory, the WARC bands...do they require an additional license, or are they included under the current Extra Class....?

Been out of the loop for a while, and I'm still trying to get back up to speed on things, especially the things that have changed since I was last active....

 

[Wire Weasel]

Hi Tony,

Extras have all privileges, everywhere. It's the highest class.

 

[N9RZD]

Peace and Merry Christmas to you N9RZD.....

If you or anyone else would be so kind as to refresh my memory, the WARC bands...do they require an additional license, or are they included under the current Extra Class....?

Been out of the loop for a while, and I'm still trying to get back up to speed on things, especially the things that have changed since I was last active....

see this link for an explanation of warc bands

WARC bands - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

just about any hf rig these days will do most ,if not all of the warc bands
they are small, 100 khz or less ,
if 20 mtrs is open , 17 might be !
if 10 is open then 12 is probably a good bet !
do you understand the concept of MUF ?
every band has its own characteristics and personality
for example : 30 mtrs is cw and data only
60 mtrs is channelized , and limited power
you can use 17 mtr for every mode , but it can be quirky
as pointed out in earlier post's
at any rate , you'll need at least a general ticket to use any of them if you want to get away from limited power and cw only
and an extra ticket will buy you access to a little more spectrum
on all the bands , but the test is pretty technical :blink:

you want my advice ?
study up and get your general , try for the extra while your at it
it will cost no more , and you can get an idea of what you know and what it will take to nail it , who knows ? you might get it !!!!!!
some people have gone from no license to extra in one day ,
and there is no more morsecode requirement ,
another thing , if you pass any element to upgrade your current tech ,
you can hit the air the same day with your new privileges ,


you wont need an extra ticket to use the warc bands just a general

and you should be able to find a rig that will get you on them
for around three bills on the used market .
you wont have tons of bells and whistles , and you'll probably have about a hundred watts for that money ,
and i'll tell you that ive worked some really cool contacts on 100watts or less

you'll need an antenna !
that 10 mtr ground plane, youve had for years wont do squat on the lower
bands , and most hf you will want to be horizontally polarized anyway
a good monoband dipole or a collinear will serve you ,
but an antenna tuner , might be a good investment

so , be prepared to throw some wire up into the trees , or
climb that tower again to change out some aluminum ;-)
google is your friend,

hope to hear you out here !!!!
Merry Christmas to you and yours also

73

 

[W5LZ]

For what it's worth, and that's not much at all...

If contests were conducted as they are suppose to be conducted, I'd have no problems with them. But they aren't. Meaning that the contesters either do not know how to do it right, or they just don't care, just out for those big numbers. So, in my opinion, the typical contester has no legitimacy, no 'rights', or deserve no consideration as far as I'm concerned. Won't go out of my way to interfere unless driven to it, but also don't plan to give any consideration to the miserable idiots (and that's the nicest way I can put it).
- 'Doc

can you tell I'm not thrilled with contests?

 

[hookedon6]

i've already stated my opinions about contests. but, just for the "record", there is a RESPONSIBLE contest sponsor.... 10-10 international. they REQUIRE that no contest activity be allowed on certain portions of the spectrum..... a "quiet zone" as they call it, to allow non-contestors bandwidth.

heck, the arrl has even turned FIELD DAY into an official contest:thumbdown::thumbdown::thumbdown:

 

[W5LZ]

A 'RESPONSIBLE' contester. Wish I'd'a thought of that, what'a concept! And I think that's the whole problem. The 'rules' don't change during contests, you still have to pay attention to busy frequencies, not interfere, etc. When was the last time, if ever, you heard that happening? Would you care to make a small wager that you will ever hear that happening, except in a very, very few 'miraculous' instances? There's only one side of that bet I'd take, wanna guess which side that is?
I'm afraid I have to agree about the 'field day' thingy too. Ready for one'a them 'old-fart' stories? I can honestly remember when field day was a day or two designed to see if all that emergency stuff still worked. Power generators, all them cords, wires, stored-in-the-box antennas, etc, etc. And the biggy, if people really remembered how to put all that stuff together and it worked. There were a few individuals doing that, but in general it was a group, or club. Who else would have all that stuff anyway? there was usually more sweat produced than anything else, except fun. One'a them, "I'll cuss the @#$ thing (or person) if I want to, but YOU shut up about it!!", thingys. And naturally, when things were up and running, you bragged about how easy it was and how it was a 'no sweat' thing for you (collective 'you'). The idea was to see how many -others- got all that crap together and working, not making 'points' or winning something. The last field day I attended I got to late. Things were already set up, bunch of people having fun, eating, operating, etc. As the day wore on, people started disappearing, had othr things to do, normal. I think there was two of us that stayed the night. No one showed up the next day to help with the break-down. Just the two of us. I sort of think the other guy didn't show up for the next field day either, you know?
Oh well...
- 'Doc

Sorry to 'diss' the good one(s), but contesters remind me a lot of politicians. How the @#$$ do you get any worse than that?!

 

[Lazybones1222]

A contest can make a band unusable. Sounds like channel 6.

 

[Happy_Hamer]

I added an answer to the poll.

I will make a few calls to where I can talk but I do not keep official results.

I use alternate bands during the contests on 12 17 and 60

If we all did this during contests we would have more fun on air I think?

60 has been a fun band during the day and night, the best of 40 and 80 mixed.

17 is similar to 20 so it is a good alternative.

12 is like 10 and 15, slow but when its open it is fun.

 

[Beetle]

Since the WARC bands are being discussed, don't discount 30 meters. Oh, yeah. It's just for CW, and the power limit is 200 watts. So what. In the past 3 months I've worked 127 countries on 30 meters.

I hardly ever actually ENTER a contest, but I like to hunt and pounce on DX. It's fun; try it sometime!

 

[Lazybones1222]

Oh i love pouncing on Dx, just don't like the contesters dismissing you after a few seconds and continuing to dominate a freq. IMHO

 

[Beetle]

If it's a really rare DX entity (or especially a DXpedition), their whole reason for being there is to provide contacts with that entity on as many bands/modes as possible, so they don't have time for anything more than a signal report and then on to "dominating" the frequency.

I don't think of it as "dominating", though. It's where the DX happens to be. The idea of "dominating" a frequency is more like CB's Channel 6.

In a contest, not everybody does the "H&P" like I do. The big guns will often stake out a frequency and camp on it. Depending on propagation, you might very well be able to be on the same frequency and not hear the contester, for some time, anyway. With the filters and DSP built in to many of todays equipment, I generally have no problem getting quite close to the big guys without much grief. It's a matter of experience and familiarity with the rig.

 

[SR385]

One of the issues is, the contesters put in such narrow filters, they don't check for neighboring signals or don't care, and work 1 kHz from ongoing QSOs when courtesy is generally 3 kHz either side under normal circumstances.

30m isn't just CW either. Just a reminder, it's a _great_ band for digi modes, psk/mfsk/olivia etc. For now that's all I can work on 30m.