The Ukraine War’s Impact on Contesting
Early in the morning of February 24, 2022, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy decreed “a ban on the operation of amateur radio transmitters for personal and collective use,” an announcement that was widely propagated on international amateur radio newsgroups online. It was only later in that day that the major international news organizations began reporting on the invasion of Ukraine by military forces from Russia and Belarus.
The impact on amateur radio contesting was swift. Within a day, the 2022 running of the UBA DX CW contest, originally scheduled for February 26th, was cancelled by its sponsor, the Royal Belgian Amateur Radio Union. Other events cancelled so far in 2022 include the Open Ukraine RTTY contest originally scheduled for March 5th, the SP (Polish) DX Contest scheduled for April 2nd, and the ES (Estonian) Open HF scheduled for April 16th.
The ARRL DX SSB contest was held as scheduled on March 5th and 6th, and participation went up from 3,674 logs submitted in 2021 to 3,963 logs submitted in 2022. In the 2021 running of the ARRL DX SSB contest, logs from Ukrainian hams made up about 1% of the total entries. The largest increase in log submissions for 2022 came from U.S. and Canadian hams, reaching a record-high of 3,961 W/VE logs. Contrast with 2019, when only 3,059 W/VE logs were submitted for this contest.
Throughout late February magazine announced on March 17 that it, “will not accept competitive entries in any of its sponsored contests by amateur radio stations in Russia, Belarus or the separatist Donbas region of Ukraine.”
