Tag: contesting

Radiosport 2.0 is not taking your baby (but it is giving it a new lease on contesting life)

context: Kyle AA0Z invited me to a roundtable discussion on his youtube channel] this evening, and it stirred up some discord and stoked the ongoing controversy grinding old-school contesters’ gears since his W1DED interview, the K5ZD N6MJ KL9A contester panel followup, his reaction, and the 2024 hamvention contesting forum call-out by K1AR. I wrote this to try to help clear some murky air, and posted to the Ham Radio Crash Course discord #radiosport-contesting channel where the fun was taking place. To a regular reader, this might seem out of place, so sorry about that. I hope you can read through that, and gather some ideas and discourse on the subject of contest modernization i.e. RadioSport2.0.

also long time no see lol

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ok i got fired up and started typing and wrote a bunch so sorry, but #offmychest…

I wasn’t a big fan of the 1984ing on the stream bc i wanna hear out and debate the hot takes. During the stream I was typing that whole time with @QROdaddy (W4IPC) because he got quieted and I wanted to hear the discord (haha pun). I really don’t like echo chambers, and I really don’t like stuff that doesn’t take holistic perspectives from all points of view, so I think we, the radiosport2.0 community need to take some better care hearing it out. Whether it’s from current youth, young and old, seasoned or noob contesters, non-contesters, or QRZ lol. With that being said, here’s my dissertation on the whole radiosport thing that’s been bouncing in my head since 2011 (https://www.arrl.org/news/youth-hamradio-fun-what-is-radiosport-and-why-do-we-do-it) and opined since 2016 (https://n0ssc.com/posts/320-contest-modernization also rip cqcontest.net but today’s is https://contestonlinescore.com)

I think we want the same thing – we contesters all want to contest, and for there to be people to contest with well into the future. I think the ideas we’re tossing around formulates an inviting, fertile ground for new contesters just coming into ham radio and contesting for the first time. Out of this, I hope we discover and create novel in-roads for normies to get into the next level. Current young contesters may think it’s great right now, because it is, but you are a lucky few who had some kind of magical unmatched personal dedication, brilliant elmering, ham family, or just ADHD hyperfocus (it me) to get hooked for life. And i’m v proud of that. But without pushing for some kind of modern, mainstream aligned ideas, environments, activities, overlays, categories, and just straight up new stuff, radiosport will stagnate as the VAST BULK of contesters pass away, out leaving behind a fraction of today’s young contesters for tomorrow. That’s facts based on statistical projections based on numerous demographic surveys and data, and you can see it plainly in Craig’s K9CT interview. So as content creators, visionaries, and rabblerousers, we’re gonna go in hot and heavy, get complainy, and poke at the hornet’s nest to bring this to the light throughout the ham community to find people interested in making it a thing, only to see if it’s a thing. Might want to work on the delivery, but the point stands.

I also think we are miscommunicating the intent of radiosport2.0 becasuse of all the “reeeeee your killing my contests get off my lawnnnn nothing is wrong why do this nooo reeee” type comments . and I don’t disagree there might be some misinformation, or really just ignorance and misremembering on our (my lol) part. There’s also the weirdness of the K9CT folks, ARRL/CAC people, and log developers keeping their radio sport 2.0 plans close to their chest (compared to us who are baring it all and at least showing somebody is out there thinking “it would be cool if…”in hopes we can garner some grassroots perturbations in the community and do something cool for the sake of the fun of it, and maybe for the sake of the hobby). But imagine things like saving the contest committee 100 hours out of their thousands to check logs by, i dunno, posting every log submission and qsordr capture carte blanche to an academic database and letting the database wizards poke at it to see how close their solutions come to the traditional methods? Or giving those connected to the internet an opt-in option to cryptographically sign their QSOs that get posted to a blockchain ledger as a smart contract for realtime, verifiable adjudication (and figure it’s vulnerabilities to nefarious players? Or let there be a new button in their log’s score reporting menu that says “send to realtime ledger” or “report [entire QSO/band-mode/freq/rotator] data to blahblahblah db/server” for beta testers and early adopters to futz with while also not ruining or even remotely changing their experience as a contester doing a contest – they’ll still be valid (depending on what they’re opting in to send they might need to change to a different category e.g. CQWW Explorer), they’ll still submit a cabrillo, they’ll get a real score in whenever time, meanwhile 99% of people probably won’t notice that button until HRCC hosts a livestream of a radiosport tournament battle royale with your hosts Kyle AA0Z and Sterling N0SSC, backed up by your experts in the field N0AX and N6MJ – all enabled by that button, only just now realizing they too can get in on that action ALL THE WHILE on the air it just sounds like regular contesters contesting; just with more of them doing this goofy livestreamed tournament thing.

And I’m not a “*real*” contester. I don’t put up high scores on 3830 because I cannot do a 24/36/48 hr contest. I go to N0AX/W0ECC/W0EEE, sit down for 2 hours, do my 200-300Q/hr rate, let the pile die, and give up for a while with a beer and a chat with the other’s on the bench, and come back at 4am when the grey line is approaching to listen to the world turn from 160m and 10m because that shit is cool. I don’t even have HF at home, and I don’t have the time to set up remote stations and be a basement dweller for a whole weekend. And I have gone a loooong time since I had my butt in a chair for more than a few hours that wasn’t at my day job. But I’ve worked at least 2 or 3 big contests every year since I was 15 years old, I’ve won plaques and paper as a sad teenage G5RV owner in nowhere Missouri, i’ve played in sweeps every year except one (not under my own callsign typically – usually under N0AX, W0ECC, and W0EEE), I drop in at random field day sites and fire through 100 QSOs in half an hour and disappear, and I had elmers like N0AX, Ed K0KL (SK), K0ZT (SK) K0ZH and the WA0FYA Zerobeaters ARC, W0EEE alumni, and K3LR and the Contest University crew who let me in free for like 3 years straight because I was the only one without gray hair. I really love contesting – it’s my favorite part of ham radio. And now as a 32 year old geezer, I do want something I can do in my tidbits of free time, that is just a bit different than a CWT or WWSAC, that isn’t just a 2 hour stint on a major contest – i want to be competitive and be ranked and scored with a pool of other contesters. I want team deathmatch, CTF, in-game perks/power-ups/items, and matchmaking lobbies. I think there’s an untapped reserve of potential new hams that would also be into that kind of radiosport. I don’t want the existing contests or methodologies to die or change, but as they stand now – as they have forever ago and forever on — are excellent grounds for trying out these new ideas unbeknownst to guys like VP5M with barely enough bandwidth for the cluster [thanks connor], the off-grid pacific islanders, africans, antarctic researchers, nordic polar bears all who make CQWW/WPX & IARUHF so much fun, or folks who just don’t do the internet and log with paper. Coexistance is a requirement, and so is the longevity of our hobby.

Tldr I want to play ham radio when I’m retired (25-30 years from now lol) so I have some ideas.

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a few edits were made for profanity, clarification, correction to K0ZH’s call.

thanks W4IPC and KG5XR for inspo and AA0Z for sticking his neck out to get these ideas on the cutting room floor

73 🛌

YARC Youth Contesting Program Round Two: IARU HF Championships

YARC’s Youth Contesting Program is back in action for the IARU HF Championships. Signup now!

YARC’s Youth Contesting Program (YCP) is a weekend program for groups of young amateur radio contesters throughout the US and Canada to meet up at a nearby-as-possible contest-grade stations during the large HF contests.

Our previous YCP was somewhat successful, in that we didn’t entirely fail – we had one successful and rewarding pairing between Patrick KE8KLC and the Voice of America Museum Amateur Radio Club WC8VOA. It helped that he was only a 15 minute drive away, and that the VOA volunteers pulled in a lot of hours preparing for the event. Our biggest pitfall was a low number of both host station and youth contesters. There’s only one way to get more applicants, and that’s to try it again!

The 2019 IARU HF Championships take place 13-14 July 2019 from 1200 Saturday to 1159 Sunday UTC. It’s both a CW and Phone contest, and is one of the years biggest.

It works like this – we will attempt to pair a small group (up to 4) of young contesters interested in operating with a “big gun” station owner interested in hosting the youth group. The contesters will operate from the station, and the host has the option to help the youth improve their skills, provide advice, and even operate alongside. We will try to keep it such that young hams will only require a relatively short drive (ideally no more than 5 hours) to keep travel costs low. As such, this will require the participation of as many operators and hosts as possible, but it might so happen that a valid match may not exist. With your help, it shouldn’t be hard to find pairings within an hour’s drive.

All you have to do right now is signup! If you’re a young ham (or know a young ham) (under age 27 or so) with at least a little bit of contesting experience, and you’d be interested in spending a weekend in July at a contest-grade ham radio station, OR if you’re the owner of such a station, sign up at the Google form here: https://yarc.world/ycp/ or scroll down to the bottom to find the form there.

YARC YCP is inspired by the efforts of YOTA’s YCP, as well as Team Exuberance and we hope to inspire a big chunk of young hams into becoming the greatest contesters of the 21st century.

Note – since we’re trying to keep this an affordable event for our young ops, we require that the station is within a 3 hour drive. And since the North America is a big place, we can’t promise that you’ll be selected as a host or operator, especially if either no young ops signup nearby your station or there’s no station near young operators. Since this is our first second try, we probably still have a lot to learn about this, so bear with us!

Thanks,

Sterling, NØSSC
YARC Programs & Outreach Dude

Announcing: YARC Youth Contesting Program!

On behalf of the Young Amateurs Radio Club (YARC) I’m pleased to announce the:

Youth Contesting Program!

YARC’s Youth Contesting Program (YCP) is a weekend program for groups of young amateur radio contesters throughout the US and Canada to meet up at a nearby-as-possible “big gun stations” during the 2019 CQ World-Wide WPX Contest taking place 30-31 March 2019. It will hopefully enable a new dimension of the hobby to young hams who have contested a little before, and set a new precedent for the welcoming of a new generation of radiosport aficionados.

It works like this – we will attempt to pair a small group (up to 4) of young contesters interested in operating with a “big gun” station owner interested in hosting the youth group. The contesters will operate from the station, and the host has the option to help the youth improve their skills, provide advice, and even operate alongside. We will try to keep it such that young hams will only require a relatively short drive (ideally no more than 5 hours) to keep travel costs low. As such, this will require the participation of as many operators and hosts as possible, but it might so happen that a valid match may not exist. We will try our best and work to make this a better program in the future!

YARC YCP is inspired by the efforts of YOTA’s YCP, as well as Team Exuberance and we hope to inspire a big chunk of young hams into becoming the greatest contesters of the 21st century.

SIGNUP HERE

If you’re a young ham (or know a young ham) (under age 27 or so) with at least a little bit of contesting experience, and you’d be interested in spending March 30-31 (CQ World-Wide WPX SSB) at a contest-grade ham radio station, OR if you’re the owner of such a station, sign up at the Google form here: https://yarc.world/ycp/ (or scroll to the bottom to find the survey conveniently embedded!)

Note – because we’re trying to keep costs low by making this a drivable event for our young ops, we can’t promise that you’ll be selected as a host or operator, especially if either no young ops signup nearby your station or there’s no station near young operators. Since this is our first try, we probably have a lot to learn about this, so bear with us!

Thanks,

Sterling, N0SSC
YARC Programs & Outreach Dude