The WFD association are planning a Field Day for the end of January - this is a contest of sorts but last year had only 350 entrants. Listening to an interview on the HamRadio360 Podcast, there have also been involvement from Europe in previous years and world-wide involvement is welcomed ESPECIALLY if you are operating portable. There are three sections - Home, away from home but Inside and outside stations. The purpose behind the event is to test equipment for possible emergency use should a distaster occur in winter. We all know that our pack and plans have to be different for a portable operation in Winter as compared to Summer.
In any case, if anyone is planning an activation or is simply chasing from home on Jnuary 28/29 (1900 UTC - 1900 UTC) you might like to take a look out for these stations - they have a list of preffered frequencies on their website as spotting on DX Clusters is forbidden - the principal being in an Emergency deployment we cannot expect the Internet to be available.
This is a more laid back type of contest - pile-ups are rare.
The website is winterfieldday.com
73 Ed.