Your First Contest

Tune across 20 or 40 meters on a busy weekend and you may hear the band packed edge to edge with stations calling CQ and trading quick bursts of numbers. That is a contest. It can sound intimidating, but contests are one of the best ways to build your operating skills, fill in states and countries for awards, and find out what your station can really do.

You do not have to stay up all weekend or aim to win. You can hand in a log with just a few dozen contacts, and the serious stations are glad of every one, because each contact counts for them too.

What a Contest Is

A contest is a time-limited event with published rules. The sponsor, often a national society, a magazine or a club, sets the dates, the bands and modes allowed, what information to exchange, and how to score. Some last a few hours, others a full weekend, and between them they cover CW, phone and digital modes such as RTTY.

Scoring usually combines points for each contact with multipliers, such as each new state, country or zone you work. That is why some stations seem so eager to reach you: you may be a multiplier for them. Different contests chase different targets, so one weekend everyone wants Europe and the next everyone wants your county.

The Exchange

The exchange is the short set of information each station must send and copy for the contact to count. Common pieces include:

• Signal Report: nearly always given as 59 on phone or 599 on CW, so it is more a formality than a measurement. See our signal reports page for what the numbers normally mean.
• Serial Number: the count of your contacts so far, starting at 1.
• Location: your state, province, county, zone or grid square, depending on the contest.
• Name: some events, such as the North American QSO Parties, ask for your first name.

Send exactly what the rules ask for, in the same order, and nothing more. Small talk is welcome another day. If a term in the rules is new to you, our ham dictionary can help.

Search and Pounce vs Running

There are two ways to make contacts. Running means picking a clear frequency, calling CQ and working the stations who answer. Search and pounce means tuning the band, finding stations that are running, and answering them. Start with search and pounce: you control the pace, and you can listen to a few exchanges before you call, so you know exactly what to send.

1. Listen until you have the station’s callsign and hear how they handle each contact.
2. When they finish a contact, give your callsign once, using phonetics on phone, and then stop.
3. If they come back with your call, send your exchange. If they got only part of it, repeat your callsign.
4. Log the contact and move on to the next station.

Once you are comfortable, try running for a while on a quieter band. A steady flow of stations answering your CQ is one of the most satisfying things in the hobby.

Logging Your Contacts

Contest logging software does far more than write things down. It records the time in UTC, warns you when you are about to work a station you already have (a duplicate, or dupe, which usually earns no points), keeps your serial numbers in order and tracks your score as you go. Many programs can also key your radio for CW or send recorded voice messages.

N1MM Logger+ is a free contest logger for Windows, and other programs are available for other operating systems. Whichever you choose, install it a few days early and make some practice entries, so you are not learning the software while the band is busy. Most loggers can export a Cabrillo file, the plain-text log format that sponsors such as ARRL require for electronic entries.

Gentle First Contests

Field Day is sponsored by ARRL and held on the fourth full weekend of June. Clubs and groups set up temporary stations, often in parks and other public places, and ARRL calls it ham radio’s open house. Its rules say plainly that Field Day is not a contest, yet stations still trade an exchange and score points, so it makes a relaxed rehearsal.

Joining a club’s Field Day is a fine way to operate alongside experienced hams; see clubs and nets. If you help set up, keep generators and their exhaust well away from tents and people, and take antennas down and stop operating if thunderstorms come near.

State QSO parties are run by clubs in many states. Stations in that state try to work as many others as they can, and everyone else tries to work them. The pace is usually gentler than in the big international contests, which gives you time to copy each exchange. ARRL’s contest calendar and its monthly Contest Corral listing include many events run by other groups as well as ARRL’s own.

Contest Etiquette

• Listen First: before calling CQ, make sure the frequency is clear, and ask if it is in use.
• Only Call What You Can Hear: if you cannot copy a station, calling them only adds noise.
• Tune Up Off Frequency: never adjust your tuner on top of a station that is running.
• Share the Band: nets and casual contacts have every right to their frequencies, and emergency traffic always comes first.
• Still Identify: the rules on giving your callsign at the end of each contact and at least every 10 minutes apply in contests too.

If you would rather avoid contests altogether on a busy weekend, try the 30, 17 or 12 meter bands. By long-standing convention contests are not held there, and ARRL has described those bands as contest-free.

Sending Your Log

After the contest, export your Cabrillo file and send it the way the rules describe, before the deadline they give. ARRL contests use a web upload page, and other sponsors publish their own instructions. Check the header lines at the top of the file, such as your callsign and entry category, before you send it.

Even a small log is worth sending. It helps the sponsor check everyone else’s contacts, and your callsign appears in the results. If you do not want to compete, many contests accept a check log, which is used only for checking. Then rest up, read the results when they come out, and mark the next contest on your calendar.