CQ Contest CQ Contest! – The Trials, Tribulation, and Triumph of Amateur Radio Contesting.

  I has been over a year since I have become active again in HAM radio, one of the activities that I really enjoyed when I had an HF station was contesting.  One of the first contests I worked was the ARRL Field Day for the San Diego Yacht Club Station W6IM.  Field Day is an informal contest with the intent to get radio operators out of the shack and in the field, setting up and operating a station in abnormal conditions to simulate operating in an emergency or natural disaster.

Here I am hard at work making contacts for the San Diego Yacht Club operating their station W6IM!

  Now that I once again have an HF station, it was time to once again try my hand at some contests!  The first contest I had planned to work was Winter Field Day, which is similar to the ARRL Field Day but put on by the ubiquitous Winter Field Day Association.  Which operates under the same premise, but with less emphasis on it being a contest (They actually are quite adamant that it is NOT a contest, I disagree but… Yeah….).  To make sure my rig, and contesting software was ready to go, I also entered the National Contest Journals’ North American QSO Party – Phone contest.   Where for a 24-hour period you try to make as many contacts in North America as you can, with your contacts multiplies by each state, Canadian province, or DXCC entity per band.).  Single operators are allowed to work only 20 hours of the contest (Something I was not aware of until after the contest was over, but was saved because I took an hour to participate in my weekly trivia net!).  Remember: Read and understand the rules before participating!

  I did not feel I did that well, the signals were fading all over the place and I just did not feel my antenna system was performing all that well. On paper I made 202 contacts, and was able to get 92 multipliers for a total submitted score of 18,584 points.  Corrected for error penalties in the preliminary results I made 143 contacts with 84 multipliers for a total of 12,012 points.  Putting us in 114 place out of 552 competitors.  Breaking that down for just the entrants in Florida.  We came in 6^th place out of 25 Florida stations.

  With that in mind, we did not do too bad for my first contest in over 20 years!

  Our next contest was Winter Field Day, but on by you guessed it!  The Winter Field Day Association.  We worked about 19 hours of the 24 hour contest, making 367 Contacts and receiving 5 multipliers for completing objectives such as receiving the WFD bulletin (which we did both via phone and a digital mode called Olivia.) Which you can see us receiving below.

Here is the audio from the 2025 Winter Field Day Bulletin Phone.  This was really neat because before the bulletin was transmitted, the operator sending the bulletin was making contacts, and I learned she grew up in Pacific Beach!  Here I am getting the bulliten station in the log as a contact.  

We received an additional multiplier for sending and receiving an email using Winlink2000.  This score put us in 59^th place out of 1227 operators! Further breaking that down in our class and section (North Florida – NFL) we came in 2^nd!  Which is something I am very very proud of!  Who with the same number of multipliers, beat us by 166 contacts!  So, I feel we could have come in 1^st had I either stayed up all night trying to work contacts on 40 meters, or found one more objective to complete!

This is a video of receiving email using VaraHF on 30 meters.  We are using the mailbox at the Escambia Co. Emergency Operations Center W4UC.  Winlink2000 has been instrumental in providing not passing critical emergency communications, requests for logistical support, but also health and welfare traffic in and out of areas affected by natural disasters such as hurricanes and wild fires.  When NO OTHER means of communications were available.  Imagine the relief of families finally getting word their loved ones are safe, only possible with ham radio.  This is why we prepare!

   Here is the email received  from  the  Santa  Cruz  Emergency  Operations  Center  (EOC)..  The next contest I worked was the National Contest Journal’s North American QSO Party – RTTY.  I was looking forward to this to this contest as I have not participated in an RTTY since 2003, where I worked the BARTG RTTY HF contest on from the 34 foot boat I was living on at the time!  Where I made 84 contacts, with 4 multipliers for a score of 15,552.  I was using a PK232 MBX at the time and my initial plan was to use my Kantronics KAM Plus as my modem this time.  That did not work out, and I ended up using the FLDigi and the built in sound card in the FT-DX10 instead.  I was very glad I did as I will point out in a bit.

  Setup was a pain in the ass!  After pouring through posts and YouTube video for the setup, I just could not get it working.  It was looking like I would have to sit this one out!  I finally found the necessary instructions in my logging software I was I using (N3FJP), and I was good to go!

  Working with the FLDigi software was a night and day difference from using just the modem!  With a modem if you do not just sit calling CQ you spend your time hunting the band, tuning in a single signal with the display on the front of the modem, with FL Digi you can see all the signals in your passband (In my case 3 Khz), and just click on the signal in the software’s waterfall display.  So much less time consuming and really helps with your hit rate.  It is no wonder soundcards/software have caused hardware data controller sales to tumble!

An RTTY exchange using FLdigi during the North American QSO Party – RTTY

  How did we do?  We got 202 contacts in the log, with 92 multipliers.  Corrected after errors in the final scores to 162 contacts, with 91 multipliers!  Each error removes not only the contact logged in errata, but a valid QSO as well, so watch that error rate!  This placed us 76^th over all, and narrowing that down to Florida entrants, 4^th out of 11 state entrants!

  The final contest that I will place in this blog, the CQ Magazine’s Worked All Prefixes contest was my favorite out of the 4!  The goal of this contest is to work as many PREFIXES as possible within the contest period.  Which gives thousands of possibilities for multipliers!  Take my callsign for instance, my PREFIX is KF6, Each iteration of KFx is a multiplier.  So, 10 possibilities!  I made some memorable contacts, such as HC8M from the Galapagos Islands on 3 Bands!  

  Another contact that stood out was working Indonesia on 20 Meters late at night.  I was getting bored on 40 and decided to go back up to 20 Meters to make a sweep.  You can listen to me make the contact here!

   How did we score on this one?  We made 333 contacts (Not counting error penalties), claimed 231 multipliers, for a submitted score of 165,858 points.  Corrected after errors, we scored 163,990 points.  That put us in 569^th place worldwide out of 3402 entrants! In North America, we scored 190 out of 1091, and in region 159 out of 943!

  Contesting is a great way to test your stations capabilities, hone your operating skills, and try new modes!  It is also a LOT of fun!  I learned that while working more local stations with my antenna is often frustrating the setup does work, and works well!  I encourage all amateurs to try participating in at least one contest, you might find you have more fun than you previously thought!  To find out what contests are coming up, the WA7BNM contest calendar is a great resource!  https://www.contestcalendar.com/index.php.

  I hope you enjoyed this week’s blog on Brent’s World!  Please come back next weekend for more great content.  If you wish to be notified by email when new content posts you can register by clicking HERE!