contesting
Plus: Putting the Panadapter to Work in Your Contest Station
The ARRL has released new rules for the upcoming 2022 November Sweepstakes contests. The new version, 1.06, can be found at <https://bit.ly/3Q0EQ1B>. Let’s run through the evolutionary and revolutionary changes in this set of rules compared to last year.
Like all ARRL HF contests going forward, the “low power” category is 100 watts or less in the 2022 Sweepstakes. This change away from the old 150-watt low power limit, had taken effect earlier this year in the ARRL DX contests. This regularizes the ARRL “low power” category with every other major contest in the world, and is a perfect match to the most common 100-watt class of HF transceiver that has been the entry point into HF contesting for the past half century.
In a first-ever step for a major contest, the ARRL now allows by explicit rule, modern social media tools — including chat rooms and video live streaming — in the 2022 Sweepstakes. These are allowed only for the Single Operator Unlimited, School, and Multi-operator categories. The exact text of the rule is: “HCAT.2.2. Entrants are permitted to use social media, video live streaming, and internet chat rooms.” ARRL Contest Manager Paul Bourque, N1SFE, describes this change as, “mainly as a way to promote amateur radio.”
I’m familiar enough with YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook to propose several ways to promote> to encourage watchers to get on the air and join in on the fun. In addition to spotting stations via the traditional Telnet clusters, if you’re a Twitter user, you could announce the presence of some of the more rare or interesting stations you hear on the air, especially when they are DX entities (e.g., Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands) or exotic locations like the Canadian Northwest Territories.
