Edited Discussion - Ideas for Improving Ham Radio Contesting
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 25 апр 2024
- I am joined by Stuart G5STU, Jonathan M0JSX, James M0GQC and Mike M0MSN. Topics covered includes:
Contest Specific Frequencies
WARC Bands Usage
Improving 30m band
Operator Conduct
Frequency Ideas
POTA/SOTA operating during Contests
FT8
List of creator channels.. Woops.. You'll work it out!
www.contestcalendar.com/conte... 
Наука
I'm a new m7, what got me into the hobby was the idea of chatting to people round the world not just very short qso for competitions
We can always do that..
Nice, well said,I only got licenced 8 months ago my self, it's a shame most people don't want to talk anymore, very, very short contacts, it's not only just contests though,it seems endemic of most operating on HF.
Thing with contests is to make them work to your advantage. Even if you dont want to directly participate, use it to bag new DXCC, test a new antenna etc etc.
I concur. I only do POTA etc due to noise at home, but in the recent competition I tested new setups, searched and pounced ad nauseum. I submitted a log to the organisers as it would be nice to compare to next years results. It was a different day and I enjoyed it.
Getting contest results sooner would be be a good improvement. Waiting 6 months plus to get results in this day and age with all the computing power is pretty sad.
Hello Callum
I watched your network yesterday & I must say that it was incredibly impressive , your technology with all the onscreen display really brings the RUclips audience close to the transceiver almost becoming a part of the network , this is something very unique particularly with your attention to detail with the on screen display .
I can appreciate that you have gone to a lot of effort & expense to create this amazing live on air on RUclips .
You unite a community of ham radio operators on a global scale & you are indeed an inspiration to the hobby .
Well done for all the above & I wish you every success for the future .
What a very kind man with some even kinder comments! Thank you!
Stuart has a pretty strong opinion on contesting, jet he knows very little about it. Glad that Callum, Mike and Jonathan were there to balance it out a bit.
By far the most important thing in contesting is location. Not power, not antennas, not operating skills, it’s location. And you don’t have to calculate your score. Just send in your log and the organiser does it for you. As a matter of fact, the adjudication system doesn’t even look at the score your logger calculated. So please don’t worry about scoring and just have fun.
Actually, Stuart's opinion was good because let's face it, 90% of folkls think like STu because they haven't been properly introduced to it. I found his ideas a real eye opener.
You do have a good point there Callum. I think you guys did a good job in countering his objections on contesting. Quite a few of them were common misconceptions. I would love to do a video on contesting and explaining what it actually is, why it is the way that is, how it can benefit you as an operator and how it can help you improve your skills. There is a lot more to it than most people think.
I am happy for contester to do there thing. Everyone has the right to use the license in any way they want. What is annoying is the band is used up with high powered stations leaving no space to let people do portable or just for a chat. And the only time most amateur's have to operate is at the weekends because they are working.
All the best David M0DUU
Yes.. I agree some small space would be nice.. I'm thinking of 40m for us..
@@DXCommanderHQ Interesting video Cal. Some interesting and valued points of view. David M0DUU
S57DX Slavco was always stellar at putting these idiots in their place.
I was thrown in at the deep-end when I was first licensed via doing a night-shift on a CQWW for my club and I f’ing loved it.
I find these days, there’s too many of them and LACK the MAGIC of contesting.
Only the other week, I was wild camping with a few non Ham’s and went through the effort to setup a portable station to demonstrate our hobby, switched the radio on and there was “CQ Contest” wall to wall on my chosen band for the evening (40m). I made two 59-73 contacts, ended up listening to the Buzzer, some broadcast stations then shutdown the station.
To summarise, I love a contests but like anything in life, too much of a good thing has negative effects.
Some good points..!
I think that one of the problems with contesting is that some operators use large amps obliterating all others.
Brilliant hour of discussion lads, contests aren't my thing, they do clog up bands but I also appreciate they are a key part of the hobby too.
It's more of an issue with regards to 40m due to lack of space & I think much more of a problem at solar minimum when more contesters are squeezed onto just 80,40 & 20m with 17m often not playing ball.
Yep.. 40m in the main.. Certainly for the UK guys where 40m is very much UK wide often..
Thanks for watching, Callum. And for your contribution to the conversation. www.youtube.com/@w1dedworldwidehamradio
Woo-Hoo! Hiya Kevin!
One other thing… golf has a handicap system.. so should contesting. So weight scores more heavily towards the lower power guys to create an all in one live leaderboard. Also, score not by total points over 24/48 hrs (to reward those glued to a commode) but say your best any four completed hours are your actual score.
Tim.. Well it DOES have a handicap.. You enter the correct category..??
@@DXCommanderHQ but you are then restricted to competing within a category. My suggestion aggregates scores to provide a level playing field without categories
make lower power a multiplier - roughly equivalent to the dB down.
I’m an extra who’s newer to HF, it seems to me that set frequency space for contests and pota/sota would make a lot of sense. Quite often friends of mine cannot talk to each other because every time we find a frequency on the weekends, someone pops up 1 or 2 Kh away calling CQ contest or pota.
Both sound like good fun, but more etiquette would be wonderful. Also people asking if a frequency is in use without bothering to notice that they’re that close to a used frequency seems to defeat the point of the question. I really like the idea of designated frequency ranges for these activities.
I think it could help let everyone enjoy the hobby their own way. I’m still in the hunt to get M0XXT in my new log book now that I’ve changed my call! Lol😂
Great video as always Callum! N8CF 73!
First paragraph.. I like it!
How about a set of freqs for QRP, or at least under 100 watts. Then QRP and in Europe the Foundation hams would have a chance.
Of course, if you did that then EVERYONE in that block would have to be say 10W or less...
@@DXCommanderHQIn the US, between 28.1 and 28.5 max power is 200w. Leftover from the old novice licence.😊
@@DXCommanderHQAnd make QRP contacts Multipliers!
Listening in on 40m this afternoon (Friday) heard Stu in a QSO I think with M0DCX?
20+ into north coast Anglesey Stu! On a vertical designed for 11m
I was on 100w 👍
All Japan 24 hour contest is on as I type.
To be honest when I was a SWL I thought contesting was absolutely bonkers. The bands were mad. Admittedly the waterfall looks pretty.
But with that out of the way, I just took part in the all Japan (day 1) and it’s definitely helping with mic fright and organization, speed and mental agility.
10 contacts so far. Two on CW (diy robo-dial key… 🤫), 10m, 15m, 40m. It’s quite an education in operations.
The contest segments are restricted in bandwidth over here leaving a fair bit of room for non-contesters.
Will give it a go again tomorrow.
Maybe even attempt to call CQ.
73 & EiEiOh!
John
Perfect! EIEIO!
Hello Callum!
Just finished at 12:00Z today.
Got a nice spread of contacts over 10/15/40m.
2/3 SSB 1/3 CW
Oh and I wasn’t the only one robo dialing CW. Someone went di da dit diiiiiiiiiiiiiiii 🤪
See if I can’t try portable next time so I can rig up a decent antenna and call CQ. Compromised antenna/QTH just didn’t hack it.
Definitely great for getting to know your equipment and procedures.
Got to stress test my DIY CW keyer also so that was good 👍🏻
Cheers!
Contesting is QRM
For the major contests, CQ WW & WPX SSB the bands are so crowded you'll have stations every 1 to 1.5KHz, you need all the bandwidth you can get. 40m is a nightmare for anyone during these weekends, we all dread getting on 40. I do really like the idea of getting 7200-7300 as secondary users, if it could be incorporated under WARC even it could be fenced off for contesting. Other regions will still call CQ contest and then often listen down for Europe but this would only happen during the biggest contests, so probably not a big deal.
There isn't a good WARC alternative to 20m sadly, 17m often has propagation 20 doesn't which is good and or bad. There are some counter arguments to be made here, "the bands are dead", "everyone is on FT8", "FT8 ruined ham radio", and yet we complain about contesting. Perhaps it's not the kind of activity we'd like to see but it's better than an empty band in my opinion, and that's coming from an active contester..
You make some excellent points!
I'm only 3:00 in, here in Australia we don't get much contest noise, I imagine it can get quite full on in Europe with many different language countries so close by.
Yeah.. It's heavy!
im with Mike if i feel like it i will enter and if not will take a look round the bands and find someone to talk to. 30m band ssb would be epic for DX i work into the far east with 10w FT8 all the time, 100w+ ssb would be able to talk to myself coming back around the globe.
I forgot which Field Day, Summer or Winter in the US. Max power 100w all bands and modes.
WInter field day for sure.. No idea about the rest.
Living in a hurricane, qnd once every 10;years, ice storm zone, what happens we need open freqs for ecomm?
Any time there are two sailboats on the water, there is a race!
Yes!
Interesting viewing chaps!
I started writing a platform for contests, In my qrz you can see part of it. It’s a rest API with a webapp that you can install in your device and is able to sync data when you come online. Stopped when I realized no ,after how perfect it is there will always be a sad ham complaining for using something for free, also had other priorities.
For me, who’s 98% of the time in the field, the problem with contesting is submitting the logs. There’s no n1mm app for phones or anything similar.
Hmmm. All interesting. Clearly you are someone with vision.
I have always wondered.....Say the 40m band increase from 7200 up to 7300, how do we use the 7200-7300 because our radios are locked. I can't afford to replace my FTDX10 with another one just to cater for the increase in band. How will this work at the end? What about that guy with a stupidly expensive radio that is locked between 7000-7200, and now the band gets increased to up to 7300. How would they move the lock from 7200 over to 7300?
There is ALWAYS a quick mod to increase that. Normally a jumper inside the rig.
@@DXCommanderHQ Thank you. This was always something that worried me. I was hoping that it might be solved with a software update from manufacturer or something that did not end up in me having to replace my radio. Never thought that the radio hardware made provision for this. I hope my local supplier will know how to do the mod should band changes occur. Thank you and have a awesome Marconi day. 👍
Just think of the Ham Radio Motto........ Every man for himself!
HAHA
The bullocks is the best part 😂
I've never had any use for contests. I'd rather have a good rag chew over a cup of coffee any day.
With POTA and contests it is just much, How about move all contest to 17m 0r 15m only and put POTA on 12m only! that would work :)
17M is supposed to be contest free!
@@DominicMazoch That's why he's talking about moving the contest to other bands, to create new splits
Contests… the problem is when it’s a 2 day weekend contest. Why not just 24 hours….
See the 2nd 24 hours. This is excellent for the weaker stations to make lots of contacts as all the big guns have already worked each other.
Maybe there could be like a live scored contest that uses Vocap to verify with AI the power levels using sig reports, it could be like a drag race style, where there's 1 hour on 80m then 1 hour on 40m ect ect.
Love it!
One thing not mentioned is Noise levels at home on HF, mine are S 7 - 20 + & +60 0n 6m, So I am down to only working /P, unless it is the UKAC Contests on 2m/70/23 cms, Without these contests, I would not be using the radio at all, As for HF Contests, They are a way of testing the antennas ability, gaining new Dxcc`s or grid squares States etc. Most of the criticism from non contesters is biased as to their interest in the hobby. As stated, There are many other bands to use & many other modes. Frequency allocation in theory would work in the smaller contests, never will it work on the CQWW`S etc, there is simply to much activity for the time of the contest. All being said the whole contest thing is just like a big pissing contest, the bigger the station the better the outcome for them EGO Central. As for the USA using 7.2 to 7.3 In the contests work them as a split, get them to TX between the 7.2 - 3 and you RX on there and you TX in your band plan, this aids in getting some traffic diverted to the 7.2 - 3 part of the band and the stations who can use it, will with a simple turning off of the split operation, be able to work simplex again.
Some good points!
I contact Scotland last week from us lol
As a terrible cw operator-can copy 7 or 8 word per minute code sent with a letter rate of 20 to 30 words per minute-I find cw contests particularly frustrating. The band is full of auto-keyers sending CQ to other auto-keyers at 35 to 40 words per minute. Nobody slows down to accommodate my 8 wpm-to do so for me costs them 4 contacts in the log with other auto-keyers. In one contest I realized I had 3 contacts logged in 45 minutes-15 minutes each to finally decipher the guy’s call sign and get an RST and exchange I could understand. The old saying “use contests to improve your CW speed” is nonsense. There should be extra points for contest QSOs with slow cw ops that burn through time you could be logging other persons’ auto-keyers. We have categories for low (QRP) power operators. Why not categories based on the actual cw skill level and operator can bring to this weekend’s contest?
There once was a contest for slower CW ops. It was called Novice Roundup. Sadly it went the way of the DODO.
I still think the DeLorean coil would work... 🤪
It would.. Make it!
@@DXCommanderHQ ha ha. 🤣
Maybe more should use 2m if HF is rammed
I like it Tim!
Why don't we try and push for a split band extension worldwide, from 7.450mhz to 7.500mhz for some extra band space, and maybe tell the contest organizers that it should be treated like a WARC band.
I can't agree with telling shortwave stations to move, they might have expensive gear tuned to the frequency they operate on, it's easier for an amateur operator to take a bit of a SWR hit and lose some efficiency as or transceivers and antennas are generally cheaper, not always but most are.
A bunch of shortwave stations moved about 15 years ago when Region 1 went from 7.1 to 7.2. It's not that hard. Couple of tweaks..
It's a solution looking for a problem. Let's be honest...the one thing hams do A LOT more than call CQ is complain about how others call CQ if it's different than what interests them. If you count available non-contest hours in the week....there is plenty of available time and space. Hams don't like to compromise....their complaint is that THEY don't want to compromise but want contests to adjust to their whims.
That’s calling the kettle black lol…So you’re crying about people with lives etc that probably don’t turn it on till the weekend. So they have to bend the knee to contests? See it goes both ways.
@@ko9wdmhnc your projection is showing...I'm saying there is no problem to fix. In this world that isn't a complaint...my apologies for your lack of understanding
There is to many contest in the weekend! There should be «same contest» (ask fore the same thing). Like nr ore other things. I dont do contest becouse i have to read What info they need this time and so On….. Ask fore the same :) more easy to join whitout find out What they need this time.
Make at least 1 weekend off whit contest in a month ore more!
Weekend is fore have funn on the air :) maby make more of the contest more in the midle of the week :) ?? Hehe.
Maby some should say: there can be 150 Spots/emty spots a year fore contest? Fore make a better balance?
My kenwood 590s is only power I got 😎
Never hear anyone complaining about the use of UKAC 2m to Ghz contests on Tues and Thursday nights.....
Yep!
One thing that is not mentioned so far 35 minutes in, is that for newcomers, the CQWW can actually be exciting to finally see the band packed full.
I've been licenced for two years now, I had an experience where I saw the SDR and had never seen that many stations, I was amazed, I did have a bad interaction with a big euro station, he must've been using a beam on 40m because he could hear us in VK easy, he was CQ calling VK and ZL.
I made a contact, I'm not sure if I have to be registered, I then moved the frequency, then ran into him again, I gave him a bit of QRM because I didn't understand the rules.
Maybe big stations should be a little considerate, maybe they should take 30 seconds to explain that he won't get any points, but no he had a little ragchew with a guy????
It's pretty arrogant to have a small ragchew in a contest, but not explain quickly to a new amateur the rules very simply.
It's likely these ignorant of newcomer stations that make contesting a pain for new people to ham, they fail to realize that if they piss off people maybe they won't have anyone to contact in the future.
When it suits, I love it.. When it doesn't suit me.. Meh! LOL!
I dont usually enter contests but I don't mind giving points because I find them useful for testing purposes. On a non contest day a station might hear you but forever reason decide not to work you, your too weak or they don't want/neeed to work that country. On contest on the other hand they usually (not always) will want every point going so will try their best to work you.
The caveat of all this is it is useful to find where you are being heard but of course not signal strength, 59 59!
Agreed.
I'm in favor of a separate frequency band for competitions. I have the opportunity to go on the air only on weekends and there are these shouting people. They are very annoying and push me away from the radio!
One question for the people who hate contests. How's your gout OM?
Mountain out of a mole hill.... any activity is good activity on a dying hobby... there's more to the hobby that HF. Take off your blinkers.
Plus ye have 1000w and still complaining 😮
Contests are great way to work new DXCC..
It's a great way for your M3, M7 to work the big DX Stations.
Agreed!
Contest should be like the rsgb CC where you contest between two frequencies that way rest of the propagating band is free for the those who only have weekend to play radio. If contesters operate outside of the given area then they are penalised or disqualified. Easy to implement in the rules. DE M0JFE
As a new ham I find contesting just to be the most boring carrot on the stick. I personally couldn’t care less or will ever even log a single contract 😁I just see zero enjoyment having to fight through the mess of a dogpile hearing a single station answering call after a call just to run a list. That’s just me.
Fair enough! Once you know where you are weak and strong, it can actually be quite fun on a "dead" band to call CQ and wait for the big boys to find you.. I made over 1,000 contacts about 10 years ago on 10m band. It wasn't too crowded but my little vertical was picked up by all the serious guys. It was fun - and I worked a ton of new countries.