Last weekend's activity - ham radio contest
Last weekend I spent 36 hours playing Morse Code on my ham radio. Why??
Obviously I must like it. I was in a ham radio contest, which is as pointless as car racing, mountain climbing, running marathons, and spectator sports. And like all these other “pointless” activities, extremely rewarding to those who enjoy them.
A ham radio contest is the natural, yet perhaps excessive, progression of what an intelligent person does with a 2 way radio. First, if you’re an intellectually curious person you might want to see how far you can communicate. Once you realize you can talk anywhere when conditions are favorable, you might try to talk to lots of interesting places. Eventually you might try to talk to as many interesting places as possible as quickly as possible (the “if some is good more is better theory”).
A typical contest is 48 hours, a weekend long, often with no rest periods. If you sleep, take bathroom breaks, go eat a sandwich, etc., you’re falling behind. A serious participant can’t take a break in a marathon or iron man competition either can they? You get points for each person you talk to, and all your “talking points” are typically multiplied by the number of countries you manage to talk to on each of the 6 main ham bands or some similar scheme. Each contest has it’s own nuances.
This was a somewhat relaxed contest – only 36 hours of operation out of the 48 were allowed by the rules. Picking the right “off times” is a key part of strategy, although I must admit my 2 and 5 year old had quite a bit on influence as well. Choosing the right band to be on at the right time is critical as well, and last years winning strategy is rarely this years. It’s slightly more complicated as most top scorers, including myself, have two radios going simultaneously – one per ear.
I did OK – preliminary results show me in 4th place, literally less than a toilet stop from 5th place.
How many people did I talk to?? About 2600. Think of a politician shaking hands as a gesture of goodwill at some international event with 2600 people.
Another way to look at a ham radio contest, or “Radio Sport” as the Europeans often call it, is as a very popular spectator sport where the players (the serious competitors) need to interact with all the fans (less serious competitors who normally concentrate on fun instead of high scores) in order to make points. Think of the Super Bowl, where every fan is also an active participant and the players need to interact with the fans to get points.
Interactive multi-user computer games are extremely popular. Imagine a game with many thousands of players. Instead of reliable communications over the Internet being a given, communications is the game, and all these thousands of players are competing and often interfering with each other. Did I mention instead of a computer connection I’ve got literally a few thousand pounds of steel and aluminum antennas and towers, plus a few miles of wire?
Had fun – can’t wait until the next one!!! This beats running a marathon or watching sports on TV ANYDAY!!!
You can read my description in ham radio vernacular at http://lists.contesting.com/_3830/2005-05/msg00581.html
Obviously I must like it. I was in a ham radio contest, which is as pointless as car racing, mountain climbing, running marathons, and spectator sports. And like all these other “pointless” activities, extremely rewarding to those who enjoy them.
A ham radio contest is the natural, yet perhaps excessive, progression of what an intelligent person does with a 2 way radio. First, if you’re an intellectually curious person you might want to see how far you can communicate. Once you realize you can talk anywhere when conditions are favorable, you might try to talk to lots of interesting places. Eventually you might try to talk to as many interesting places as possible as quickly as possible (the “if some is good more is better theory”).
A typical contest is 48 hours, a weekend long, often with no rest periods. If you sleep, take bathroom breaks, go eat a sandwich, etc., you’re falling behind. A serious participant can’t take a break in a marathon or iron man competition either can they? You get points for each person you talk to, and all your “talking points” are typically multiplied by the number of countries you manage to talk to on each of the 6 main ham bands or some similar scheme. Each contest has it’s own nuances.
This was a somewhat relaxed contest – only 36 hours of operation out of the 48 were allowed by the rules. Picking the right “off times” is a key part of strategy, although I must admit my 2 and 5 year old had quite a bit on influence as well. Choosing the right band to be on at the right time is critical as well, and last years winning strategy is rarely this years. It’s slightly more complicated as most top scorers, including myself, have two radios going simultaneously – one per ear.
I did OK – preliminary results show me in 4th place, literally less than a toilet stop from 5th place.
How many people did I talk to?? About 2600. Think of a politician shaking hands as a gesture of goodwill at some international event with 2600 people.
Another way to look at a ham radio contest, or “Radio Sport” as the Europeans often call it, is as a very popular spectator sport where the players (the serious competitors) need to interact with all the fans (less serious competitors who normally concentrate on fun instead of high scores) in order to make points. Think of the Super Bowl, where every fan is also an active participant and the players need to interact with the fans to get points.
Interactive multi-user computer games are extremely popular. Imagine a game with many thousands of players. Instead of reliable communications over the Internet being a given, communications is the game, and all these thousands of players are competing and often interfering with each other. Did I mention instead of a computer connection I’ve got literally a few thousand pounds of steel and aluminum antennas and towers, plus a few miles of wire?
Had fun – can’t wait until the next one!!! This beats running a marathon or watching sports on TV ANYDAY!!!
You can read my description in ham radio vernacular at http://lists.contesting.com/_3830/2005-05/msg00581.html
posted by Ted Demopoulos at 12:10 AM
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