Any new Challenge for 2025? (Part 2)

One challenge every three or four years is plenty.

It doesn’t do that if you multiply the numbers together.

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Whether there should be a challenge is a matter of opinion. There is no doubt that a challenge on a reasonably accessible band would gain a popular response even though there would be opposition from some of us to having too many challenges.

It is worthwhile to re-state the basis on which a challenge band has been selected:

  1. It should be a band which is universally available on all major modes world-wide.

  2. It should not exclude popular modes.

  3. It should be a band which does not require a major outlay in equipment or require advanced specialised knowledge.

  4. It should be a band that can be shown to be neglected but is capable of giving good results.

Bands like 60m which are not universal, 30m which excludes phone operation, or microwaves requiring the majority of hams buying or making new equipment should be excluded.

This more or less summarises the thinking of the MT when planning challenges. I will add that in my opinion a band should only be considered as worthy of a challenge if it has gained less than 5% of the numbers of contacts gained by the most popular band. For reference, the most popular band is 7MHz, which last time I checked had got 3,781,815 contacts, so a challenge-worthy band should have less than 189091 contacts. You can check out the “Activator QSOs by Band” table in “Facts and Figures” in the database to see which bands would qualify on that basis.

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122 post later… 15m fits Brian’s requirements. :wink:

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it is slightly over at 217,452, as is 60m at 192505 - which would not be a choice anyway. The top three candidates are 80/75m at 91,680, 12m at 84,784 and 6m at 72,976. 80/75m is a much better choice for sunspot minimum, 12m while nominally a good choice has been done before, and while the time is right for 6m it would not suite some of those that have commented in this thread…too much of a challenge?

Neither 12m nor 6m are universally available. We ran into this issue with the 12m challenge, and is brought up regularly when discussing a 6m challenge.

Perfection is unobtainable, we just do the best we can for the maximum number of people.

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Hurry up I only have 3 days left to make my 'challenge" antenna or not.
NHY Regards
Ian vk5cz …

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Ian,

it was a challenge to figure out what NHY meant, but I got there!

After the 122+ comments I think I now agree with the idea of having a challenge-free year. Some time for reflection and pursuing personal goals will be welcome.

73 Andrew vk1da/2da

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Sorry Andrew bit dishlecsick.
Yeh good to have a spell I guess. My urgency in having a year off SOTA is I am a bit too close to 85cm on the tape measure to be having time off. HNY not NHY was supposed to be the CW abbreviation for Happy New Year.
Regards all you do good work.
Ian vk5cz …

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hi Ian,
Actually I’m thinking of increasing my SKCC score from the 3 it is today, up closer to 100 which you need to be in the century club. Means carrying a hand key and I found that the one i have been carrying is useless, impossible to adjust with just a pair of pliers. And also, thinking of doing more on 21 mhz than I have in the past. So even if there is no 21 challenge, no problem I need to build a flowerpot for 21 and get more active there anyway. hope to work you often during the next year, apart from Wednesday.
cu on the air.
73 Andrew vk1da

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I’m coming round to the arguments put forward by Rick @MØLEP, Tom @M1EYP, Barry @GM4TOE, Pete @WA7JTM, Gerald @G4OIG and others for not having back-to-back annual challenges, so no specific SOTA challenge for 2025.

Whilst the 2024 10m Challenge was fun for me [I worked far more long-haul dx in the last 12 months on 10m to ‘exotic’ places like North America than in all the previous years since first being licensed] it probably did pull a lot of us away from more general and personal goals (and other bands!). It did in my case: In late 2023 I was just discovering the joys of minimalist HF radio for SOTA activations ……
2023-11xx 30m Minimalist HF setup on Gummers How

…. but I put that to one side about that time and went back to using ‘proper’ antennas to get in on the solar-cycle-max 10m miracle that everyone else was raving about on this reflector.

Back then I found the rapid set-up and pack-up times for my minimalist HF kit made it ideal for cold-weather activating, and I like the idea of doing a lot more. With my seldom-used MFJ 1830T and MFJ 1815T whips on the KX2 I would like next year to focus on 30m (my favourite band for lots of reasons) and 15m (little used by me and with solar-cycle near-max it should yield good dx in 2025).

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Hi All,

It’s seems that my innocent question sparked a big discussion.

My view is that challenges are good as they encourage us to try something new. Not sure what is the increase of QSOs between 2023 and 2024 on 10m band but suspect it could be 2-3 times increase.

IMO challenge for 15m band would be great as it has great DX potential.

Of course, challenge does not exclude from using usual bands (40/20) and there is no obligation to take part. In my case I started to participate a quite late in the day and missed first few months of good band conditions.

There are no brakes in contests, and activation is a challenge in it self, so I don’t understand calls for a break.

Happy New Year Everyone, I hope to meet you on the bands soon.

GL 73 Marek

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Re all the calls for a 15m band challenge, there is no reason why a group of activators or a club should not organise an informal challenge for that band - or any other band for that matter. Use the rules for the 10m challenge, post claims in a reflector thread and update them via the correction icon.

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It was a perfectly valid question. I had forgotten that we on the MT had decided that we should always leave a year after a challenge to allow things to return to “normal”. But I think I will try to do more 15m next year anyway, challenge or not. I have 3 antennas that work on 15m but think a dedicated 15m antenna is worth making as my 10m delta loop does seem to outperform my multiband EFHW rigged as an inverted 7 on 10m. I’m contemplating design ideas now.

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Given that the last posts on the MT Challenge topic were discussing when to announce the 50MHz challenge I guess we all did! :grinning:

You are right, though, it sounds a good idea to pay more attention to 15m while the sunspot maximum continues, and I intend to improve my antenna. 10m has been a great experience, I finished off with a bang this afternoon with a chase into W0C so although as a single mode chaser, and in a high noise environment, I won’t have an astronomical score but I am happy with what I did achieve.

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I did no FM QSOs on 10m in the challenge, for me just SSB and CW. I did try some FT8 from Carn a’Mhaim but it was too tedious for me and I went back to CW.

For me it’s not having a high score though it’s nice. I wanted there to be lots of possible chasers on 10m at the sunspot peak. Enough that every time I called CQ SOTA on 10m someone would return to my call. The best way to achieve that is to propose a 10m Challenge. So I was being selfish when I proposed it but I think people have enjoyed it. I have :slight_smile: However, I still haven’t had a QSO to Hawaii or Alaska on 10m :frowning:

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Nor me, plus I was hoping to get VK or ZL but the real DX SOTA never got through my wall of noise. However, as long as activations continue to show up on 10m SSB I will be there with my boots blacked, its a great band!

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Wouldn’t they have been there anyway? Despite losing interest in the challenge I have still continued to activate on 10m when out at a suitable time and have had plenty of QSOs. Next year I shall do the same and also do 15m as much as this year.

Perhaps everyone should pick their own challenge for next year. No scoring but come on the reflector and report on what you achieved.

Ideas:

  • Use a mode or band you haven’t tried before
  • Use a homebrew rig
  • Make a new aerial
  • Use public transport
  • Activate abroad
  • Camp on a summit
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Yes and no. What’s new for one person isn’t always new for another. In my case, it was the exuberant posts on this reflector in Q4-2023 that got me to try something new, i.e. 10m activations – the 2024 10m challenge helped sustain my interest until recently.

But, as @G8ADD, @MM0FMF and @G4TGJ just wrote, we can devise and implement our own challenges for next year - with a little imagination and determination.

15m, 12m and 10m will be high on my list whilst these solar-max conditions last.

Happy New Year, everyone.

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I think I’ve done all of those apart from activate abroad, however, I got a passport recently and an activation abroad may be a possibility in 2025. I’d really like to go to Ham Radio in Germany and my son is quite keen too. Haven’t really worked out the possibilities of getting there yet.

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