Big contests?

On the Bands
1

Hi,

could anybody tell me, which the contests are, where bands are very crowded, from the SOTA point of view? At least if you have only 20 m CW?

Today I learned, CQ WW DX CW is :confused:

Apologizes for my ignorance.
73
Axel, DF1ET

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2

Yes, CQ WW CW, this kind of atypical weekend about big contests is not good idea runs in 40-20-15m bands, IMO. Better use Warc bands, 30m for example.

I remember WPX Ā“19 when I was activating a sota reference, lucky because I carried a 10 mhz antennaā€¦

Usually, contest people ā€œdoesnĀ“t earā€ sota guysā€¦or simply 1000 whatts is over 5.

example of the WPX Ā“19:

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3

OK, I put WPX on my list.

My problem is: 1. I really donā€™t know, which the big contests are. 2. It will still take a long time, until Iā€™ll have more than 20m (e.g. WARC).

73
Axel, DF1ET

4

I use https://www.contestcalendar.com/ to keep track which contests are going on.

Cindy
K7CLR

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5

Hi Cindy, thatā€™s a good calendar. But which are the big ones. I have been out of ham business for 35 yearsā€¦

Axel

6

I found those that last 2-Days are the real big ones. There are a few that are 1- Day. There are those that only last a few hours.

Cindy

7

OK, thank you. So I should avoid the two day contests.

Axel

8

Hi Axel

Had the same question last year regarding big SSB contests. Avoid CQ WW DX (end of November) and CQ WPX (CW: end of May). They are big, whatever we may consider ā€œbigā€ to be, hi.

So enjoy next week instead! (I hope there are no CW contests ā€¦ :wink: )

Vy 73 de Markus, HB9DIZ

9

Hi Markus,
Didnā€™t see your question. Gives me a good answer!
Thank you!

Axel

1 Like
10

Hi Axel.

All the contests organized by the CQ Magazine are big world-wide contest. Visit cqww.com and click on all the links on the top of that page to learn about that series of contests and which of them could be a problem for you. Other contest that you might want to avoid are those organized by DARC (visit https://www.darc.de/der-club/referate/referat-conteste/). Finally, IARU World Championship (IARU HF World Championship) could be a strong qrm generator, too.

I guess youā€™ll be able to handle qrm from all other national and international contests. You can even do a few contest qsoā€™s from your summit: they would count towards both your contest score and your SOTA scoreā€¦

73,

Zoran / E70AA

11

Hi Zoran,

thank you for the infos and links. Maybe I should really try to do some contest qsos, tried to avoid it up to now.

73
Axel, DF1ET