DELARANEWS

Contesting

The CQ WPX SSB Contest is coming up on the March 27 weekend. You can find some excellent pointers on strategy and how to maximize your score by reading the CQ WPX RTTY Contest (completed) pointers in the Northern California Contest Club's February JUG. David, WD6T, starts off with location, location, location, then heads into antennas, pointing out that contacts on 160 through 40 meters are worth double those on the higher bands. Then, strategy. Prefixes are the multipliers, so if you have a unique one, or access to a unique one, use it! He also points out that part-time contesters could maximize their contribution by throwing in with a distributed multi- multi effort. David points out that knowing the rules, and the changes in the rules, is important, and should influence where you point your antennas and what bands you are on to maximize QSO values. N1MM Logger+ added a new feature that will be of interest to Sprint contest participants: "Silent" macros that can be included in messages to automatically change the operating frequency after a QSO. Here's the description of the feature added in version 1.0.8990 and later by N2IC: "Added {FREQUP} and {FREQDN} macros. These are used after an {END} macro to shift the active radio frequency by the frequency increment in the Configurer->Other tab. Useful in Sprint-like contests to automatically change the frequency after a QSO, as required by the rules." The North American Sprint, RTTY on March 13 would be a fine time to try this out! Neil, WB9VPG, writes that the Youth on the Air Camp is still on for Summer 2021: "We know that changes in the COVID-19 pandemic status between now and July will have an impact on our decision to host the camp. At this time, we are still hopeful that hosting the camp safely July 11- 16, 2021 will be possible. Should we not be able to host the camp, we will let everyone know with as much notice as possible, and postpone it to 2022. Our plan is to make the final decision in the month of April." For more information, see the YouthOnTheAir website BIC, B-I-C. "Butt In Chair" radio contests have a defined start time and end time. If an operator is not at the radio and making contacts, they're losing points. "I didn't do as well in the contest as last year - too many weekend distractions, not enough B-I-C." - ARRL Contest Update