Luis Barrantes asked in a thread below: I would appreciate very much if someone publishes a Ham Contest 101 manual so that next contest I can participate. Im sure that Luis is not the only one who would like a better understanding of Ham Radio contests in general and HamSphere contests in particular. I think even some operators who never liked or participated in contests on real HF are interested in participating on HS4 just to learn more about the bands, make more contacts, and help HS4 be successful. The short explanation of Ham Radio contests is that they are a competition to see who can make the most contacts and/or score the most points during a specific contest period. They are a great challenge, can be very fun, and can teach you a lot about propagation, antenna performance, dealing with pileups, and gaining confidence on Ham Radio. In every contest there is a specific exchange that takes place between stations. This exchange varies by contest. I was in one HF contest in which you gave a signal report and your AGE! :-) In most HamSphere contests the exchange is simply a signal report (usually just 59 in a phone contest or 5NN in a CW contest by tradition) and a sequence number. Sequence number is just a number that counts up from 1 for each contact you make. So, on your first contact in the contest you give a sequence number of 1 or 01 or 001 and on your second contact in the contest you give a sequence number of 2 or 02 or 002. If you use the link on the HS contest page for a particular contest to join that contest then your log book will automatically go into contest mode when the contest starts. In contest mode, your log book will automatically keep track of the sequence number that you should send and gives you a spot to fill in the sequence number that you receive. Real HF contests can get much crazier and involve much more optional equipment and programs than a HamSphere contest but if you read about or participate in a real HF contest you will have many of the skills that you need for a HamSphere contest and vice versa. They are both good practice for the other. I am going to attach 3 links for information. The first, attached to this post, is the Contest Guide put together by Kelly for HamSphere. This will give you all the details you need for operating in a HamSphere contest. I will attach two other relevant links in comments below. 73 de WB7ECW. hamsphere/26_21146_read.html
Posted on: Mon, 05 Jan 2015 19:30:49 +0000