ARRL January VHF Contest is Jan 18-19, 2014. Links to my VHF Contesting School Articles at the Bottom.
Sunday, December 22nd, 20137:15am Sunday
Time to start spreading the word that the ARRL January VHF Contest is less than a month away.
Here’s the direct link to the ARRL info: http://www.arrl.org/january-vhf
I have been advocating for more V/UHF contesting via email since 2007 and this blog since 2009. To me, a contest is the single most exciting time to be on the bands. You will hear more workable stations during a contest than at any other time. You may hear grids that are not usually active. You can track and support rovers who take their radio show on the road, handing out contacts from multiple grids. Since the V/U bands are usually too quiet, you want to be around the rigs when the activity is there.
Start making plans now to be available during the weekend of Jan 18-19. Even if you only have one or two VHF bands, that’s just fine. The vast majority of V/U contesting takes place on the bread-and-butter bands of 50 and 144 MHz. Tell your ham friends about this opportunity. This is the only wintertime V/U contest; the next one isn’t until early June.
If you want to know more about VHF/UHF Contesting, I have a multi-part series of articles I wrote a few years back. I call these articles VHF Contesting School and links to every article are here: http://kc9bqa.com/?p=5931 . Save that link in case you need to refer back to it. PLUS, get this info to hams everywhere. You are free to rebroadcast it far and wide. The whole reason I do this blog is to increase activity on the SSB/CW portions of ham bands like 50, 144, 222 and 432 MHz. The more hams who help spread the word, the more we all benefit.