Contest (amateur radio)

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Certificate for participation in an American Radio Relay League contest (1930)
American radio amateur during a contest (2014)
Contest station in Germany (2017)

A contest is a competition among radio amateurs .

An international amateur radio contest usually lasts 24 or 48 hours. Short contests at national level often only last a few hours. The aim is to achieve as many evaluation points as possible, depending on the announcement, which is calculated from the number of connections with other amateur radio stations in a certain or all permitted operating modes on one or more bands and the number of areas reached, local association experts and / or call sign prefixes .

Contest traffic

As a participant, you either start a CQ contest call or answer the call from other participating stations. During the connection, the callsign and the contest-relevant data are exchanged. These consist of the signal report and usually a serial number starting with 001 and / or (depending on the conditions of the tender) an abbreviation of an area, state, (local) association or club, the QTH locator or the ITU zone , especially in competitions organized by amateurs in the USA, including the CQ zone. The names or ages of the participants are rarely exchanged.

The data record (log) of the connections achieved during the competition, consisting of the received and sent information as well as the time in UTC , is nowadays mainly recorded with a logbook program directly on the computer before it is sent to the in a specified period in a recommended or specified format Organizer is transmitted. Handwritten logs were submitted to the organizer by post, but with the increasing spread of e-mail and WWW, fewer and fewer organizers accept them. The German Amateur Radio Club (DARC) only accepts electronic contest logs, either in Cabrillo or Stützerbach ( STF ) format.

Classes

Depending on the contest, there are different classes of participants with separate ratings. In many contests, a distinction is made between the operating modes used , if several are allowed. There is also a division into single and multi-person stations (radio stations with several operators). One-man stations are often subject to a limit on the maximum operating time, e.g. B. to 18 hours during a 24-hour contest. The rest period may have to be documented in the logbook. Supported and unsupported operation, which relates to the use of a DX cluster , are often assessed separately. In addition, classes of participants are divided according to the transmission power used, mostly into the classes low power (up to 100 watt PEP ) and high power (over 100 watt PEP), in some competitions there is also a QRP class (up to 5 watt PEP) .

Field Day

Oxford and District Amateur Radio Society on Field Day

In so-called Field Days , which are also seen as preparation for any emergency radio traffic, stations with portable equipment and network-independent power supply take part. A special representative of such contests with personal presence is the WRTC ( English World Radio Sport Team Championship , radio sports-team World Cup ' ), in which every four years qualified teams of two 24 hour time for QSOs have throughout the world.

Nowadays, amateur radio meetings without competitive character are often referred to as field days .

CQ WPX Contest

The CQ WPX Contest is an annual, worldwide competition for shortwave radio amateurs. The contest is for Phonieverbindungen ( SSB ) on the last weekend of March and for Morse - Telegraphy last weekend of the month of May. The competition lasts 48 hours.

literature

  • Andreas Fritsch, DB8NI; Toby Deinhardt, DD5FZ; Alfred Iberer, DF6RI; Tobias Wellnitz, DH1TW; Franta Bendl, DJØZY; Gerd Sapper, DJ4KW; Simon Schelkshorn, DJ4MZ; Hajo Weigand, DJ9MH; Roland Mensch, DK3GI; Hans Gall, DK3YD; Ulrich Müller, DK4VW; Matthias Jelen, DK4YJ; Ulf Schneider, DK5TX; Helmut Heinz, DK6WL; Wolfgang Güntner, DK7MCX; Winfried Kriegl, DK9IP; Stefan von Baltz, DL1IAO; Christian Janssen, DL1MGB; Peter Pfann, DL2NBU; Wolfgang Kraack, DL3LAB; Bernhard Büttner, DL6RAI; Christian Reiber, DL8MDW; Dieter Schuster, DL8OH: The BCC manual for the contester . Ed .: S. Schelkshorn, DJ4MZ. 4th edition. 2011 ( bavarian-contest-club.de ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ General DARC DX & HF contest rules. No. 5, paragraph 2. In: The Club - Contests section. German amateur radio club. From DARC.de, accessed on November 1, 2019.
  2. ↑ DARC: IARU Region 1 Fieldday . Retrieved October 1, 2015.
  3. ↑ Press releases WRTC 2018. WRTC2018 eV, September 2, 2018, accessed on March 5, 2020 .
  4. ^ World Radiosport Team Championship. Official Web Site of WRTC History. WRTC.info Team, accessed March 5, 2020 .