CONTESTING
See our new Periodic Table of Contests for 2021 on page 56. Details below.
The spike in contest activity that began in mid-March continues into Fall 2020. Counting logs received in 2020 and comparing to last year, the major international event of CQWW RTTY activity was up 18% and WAE (Worked All Europe) SSB log submittals were up 32%.
Activity in the ARRL September VHF Contest was also up over the previous year. The September 2020 edition had 834 logs submitted, an increase of 21% over 2019. Jim George, N3BB, in writing up the results from the September 2020 North American Sprint CW, notes “We received 183 logs, an increase of nearly 50% over a year earlier.”
ARRL DX Contest Multioperator Temporary Changes are a Game Changer for 2021
While single-operator contest entries have been through the roof since March 2020, all the contest organizers have noted a decline in multi-operator entries as travel and gathering restrictions have markedly reduced multi-operator activities. You will remember that the ARRL made some special allowances for 2020 Field Day to allow aggregate club scores to be grouped together, as well as the point value of certain contacts.
In late October 2020, the ARRL announced that special temporary accommodations for multi-operator stations would allow geographically distributed multi-ops in the 2021 ARRL DX contest. Stations must obey all usual multi-operator rules regarding signals per band and band changes. Paul Borque, N1SFE, the ARRL Contest Program Manager, tells me one way of thinking about the accommodation for the ARRL DX contest,
