Foundations Of Amateur Radio

Foundations of Amateur Radio Today I'm going to look at the actual on-air activity of the contest. Previously I've talked about the preparation and planning, as well as the doing, in terms of mechanics, what to bring, where to put it and how to power it all. At the most basic level, a contest is a combination of two things, making and taking calls. It's an important point, so I'll say it again. A contest is two things, sitting on a frequency and call CQ and have other stations call you, and, it's also hunting up and down the dial finding other stations who are calling CQ. These two sides, being the instigator of the contact, and being the responder, are needed to make points. Even the most advanced contest station with multiple operators and transmitters will do both these things and when you're on your own you too need to do this. One reason for this is that in a contest others are doing the exact same thing. They're also swapping between both these activities to pick up extra points and multipliers. An