Ham radio contest calendar

How contest dates work

Most big contests are held on a fixed weekend each year, set by a rule such as "the last full weekend of November" for CQ World-Wide CW. A full weekend is one where both the Saturday and Sunday fall in the same month. Times are always in UTC, and many 48-hour contests run from 0000 UTC on Saturday to 2359 UTC on Sunday, which is 1 a.m. on Saturday to 1 a.m. on Monday in the UK during British Summer Time.

The biggest contests

CQ World-Wide DX (SSB in October, CW in November) is the largest contest of the year, when the bands are packed and rare countries come on the air. CQ WPX counts prefixes rather than countries. The ARRL International DX Contest has everyone outside the US and Canada working US and Canadian stations. The IARU HF World Championship in July features headquarters stations of national societies, and the WAE DX Contest has a unique QTC system for exchanging logged contacts.

In the UK, the RSGB runs National Field Day and SSB Field Day for portable stations, the Commonwealth Contest (BERU) between Commonwealth countries, and the IOTA Contest, which brings out island stations worldwide. On VHF and UHF, the IARU Region 1 contests in September and October are the busiest weekends of the year.

Getting started

You don't need a big station to enjoy a contest. Search-and-pounce, tuning across the band and calling stations that are calling CQ, works well with 100 W and a wire antenna. Exchanges are short, typically a signal report and a serial number or zone, so listen to a few contacts first to hear what's needed. Free logging programs such as N1MM Logger+ handle duplicate checking and scoring, and most contests now want logs in Cabrillo format by e-mail or upload within a few days.

Before the weekend, check the band conditions and the grey line, and learn the Q codes and the phonetic alphabet if you're new to operating.

Questions