What use is an F-call?

Recently I participated in my first amateur radio contest. In short, it was a blast!

One thing I noticed was that several amateurs I speak to on-air regularly were not there and I'd heard a few people say that "Contesting is not my thing". I respect that, but I'm also a little disappointed by it because it was a lot of fun. I started thinking about it a little and wondered what else might be occurring that could account for some of this. I'm sure that part of it is that you might not actually have ever participated in a contest and it might be that you have no idea how it works, so you feel left out before you begin.

Let me give you a fly-over view of a contest, not a specific one, just the notion of what's happening on air. The idea is that you count and log your contacts. Every time you make a new contact, you log the time and date, frequency and mode and of course the call-sign of the station you contacted. You also give the other station a unique number and they give you one in return. The number is the count of contacts you've done at that time. You log the number with each contact.

For example, and I'm stressing here that this is just an example. If I go on air and say: CQ Contest, CQ Contest, vk6flab listening. I'll get back a call, vk6bdo. I'll say, vk6bdo, this is vk6flab with 012 for you. The response will come back: vk6flab, vk6bdo, QSL 012, I give you 413. I'll say QSL 413, Happy Hunting, vk6flab listening.

What I've just done is sent 012 to vk6bdo and they've sent 413 back to me. My next number will be 013 and theirs will be 414.

That's it. I should note that contests have rules that are published prior to the event, such as how points are allocated, whom you're allowed to talk to in which mode on what frequency, etc. Each contest is different, all dependent on why the contest is being held.

Now I've said that this is an example. You'll note that there are some extra words in the interaction. I say for example, "Happy Hunting". That's completely superfluous. If you're a die-hard contester, you'll probably be horrified. My take on it is that to become a die-hard, you need to start somewhere and you need to realise that there are humans on the end of each contact.

One of the things I took away from my contest participation is a sense of community. I spoke with 70 different stations within 24 hours. Some contacts were strictly business, others were more involved. I got compliments for hitting my first 10 contacts, my first 50, etc. There was an ongoing camaraderie that encouraged people to participate. I spoke with stations towards the end of the contest who had just made 4 contacts, and I was one of them. I felt humbled by their participation. Of course there were stations with over 600 contacts, and talking to them was a different kind of thrill.

While I completely understand that "Contesting is not your thing", I'd encourage you to participate and have a go, you might be surprised.

I'm Onno, vk6flab.