What is a Amateur Radio Contest ?
Contests are a popular aspect of the amateur radio scene. Contesting gives you an opportunity to practice and develop your operating techniques, and to see how well your station is performing.
Purpose of Amateur Radio Contests?
Radio Contests have one objective, to get many stations on air and to increase the opportunities for making contacts.
Who takes part in contests?
Contesting is popular both around Australia and worldwide. Though out the year, mostly on weekends, there are a number of local, Australian and international contests. The contests are operated under known rules and suit the various interests of most amateurs.
There are contests for the HF bands, for the VHF-UHF bands, and for all bands. Some contests are designed for restricted power and are ideal for Australian foundation operators. In addition to voice mode, some contests have special sections for modes including CW and other popular digital modes. Most contests have different sections for individual amateurs and multi-operator or club stations.
Where can you find out more information? One good source is the WIA contest pages
http://www.wia.org.au/members/contests/about/
If you have not had a go at contesting, talk to other members of the team. They can recommend ideal set up, PC logging software (e.g VKCL) and suggest portable operating sites.
Enjoy, have fun and remember it does not really matter who wins 😉
Philip – VK3JNI
