20160911 - Contesting this week

This weekend we're in the middle of Worked All Europe DX Contest. Contacts can only be made between European and Non-European stations, so here in VK6 you'll be considered a fine prize. Sit on a frequency and make some noise. The exchange is a serial number. Contest ends at midnight UTC, that's 8am Monday morning if you're in VK6. You'll also find Corsica, Lesotho, St Lucia, Mongolia, Greenland, Djibouti, East Kiribati, Pitcairn Island, Bonaire, Tonga, Market Reef, Guernsey, New Caledonia, Turks & Caicos, Gibraltar, Albania, Svalbard, Mariana Island, South Cook Island, Bhutan, Maderia and Samoa on air in various DXpeditions and Activations, so use the opportunity to add some contacts to your log and some countries to your tally.

The Straight Key Century Club is also on-air this weekend with a sprintathon, so that gives you an opportunity to practice your rusty or non-existent morse skills and talk to some friendly hams across the globe who have made the language of Morse their own.

Contesting isn't just about making points.

We've said it before, contesting is about learning, about making the impossible get, to pick out that elusive station among the noise in an adverse environment. It also gives you the opportunity to understand that propagation isn't always bad and that bands that you think are closed actually have lots of activity on them, just not when you happen to be listening. A contest weekend is about finding out what your ears are made of, what your station performance is like and if all the things you planned for actually came about.

You'll find more information about the various contests and DXpeditions on the calendar on the vk6.net website.