[CQ-Contest] contests and participation on air

[Pete Smith N4ZR]

Well said, Charly. For most of my ham life I got into contests *in order 
to* work DX, because I was stuck with low power and wire antennas in the 
trees behind our townhouse.

I think what we need is a way to get the word out about what times of 
day and on what bands hams in the rest of the world can expect to hear 
(and maybe even work!) Southeast Asian stations like yours.  I know that 
if you asked me (I've only been on the air since 1954) I could not tell 
you with confidence when the openings occur between the US mid-Atlantic 
and HS-land.  Sure, I could go look at VOACAP, but I suspect a lot of 
new guys, even ones with HF privileges, don't know how to use tools like 
that, and a lot of others have been frustrated when they realized that 
those predictions are averages, and don't reflect conditions on any 
particular day or weekend.

Of course, you can go to the RBN and set filters so that it only 
displays stations heard in your area, and then select the zone or 
country you're interested in.  The server will then look back a maximum 
of a week (it resets on Monday morning, UTC). Another tool that can help 
is ViewProp, by ZL2HAM.  It is described at 
http://zl2ham.wikispaces.com/, and you can download the latest beta at 
http://zl2ham.wikispaces.com/.  With ViewProp and a copy of DXAtlas from 
VE3NEA, you can download the RBN archive of spots from, say, the IARU HF 
contest, set your location, and play back the contest, showing when and 
where stations in your area were hearing/being heard, on all bands.  You 
can even keep it running in the background, continuously, and see at a 
glance which bands opened over the last 24 hours, and to what areas.It 
is a very neat way to painlessly learn about propagation and plan your 
operating time, whether you're a contester or a DXer.

73, Pete N4ZR
Check out the Reverse Beacon Network at
http://reversebeacon.net,
blog at reversebeacon.blogspot.com.
For spots, please go to your favorite
ARC V6 or VE7CC DX cluster node.

On 7/22/2013 4:23 AM, Charles Harpole wrote:
> No real news to most of us but maybe more striking in signal-poor South
> East Asia----- contests GET HAMS ON THE AIR.  Then, no contests equals lots
> of artificially dead bands.
>
> Many times in week days, I can tune ALL of the HF bands and hear less than
> ten ham-originated signals totally !  Think of it, most bands TOTALLY DEAD
> and at any time day or night even with high flux times.  And it is not
> propagation's fault;  there are just no hams on the air that would
> propagate to me near Bangkok.
>
> THEN comes a huge contest weekend and all the bands light up with hundreds
> of signals, maybe thousands (the thousands calling me in zone 26, for
> example).  Twenty and fifteen have no blank spaces to slip in to start a CQ
> and a run!
>
> The fact is that without contests (and DX chasing) ham radio would appear
> to have disappeared if listening around.  12 meters with less than 25
> spots!  Imagine !
>
> Contests and DX sell radios and antennas;  get people improving their rigs;
> and get hams off the Internet and back on the air.
>
> Tell all this to the grumpy few rag chew groups too lazy to move to the
> WARC bands.  But, get on the air, hams!  Bands are open and waiting.
>
> 73
>
> Charly, HS0ZCW
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