Something every contest operator has thought about at one point or another is, “Why?”

Why do we put in the long hours for no tangible reward? Why do we build our stations with unstinting dedication? Why are we drawn to the sounds of a band throbbing with signals, only to eek out a tiny slot for ourselves to join the fray?

They’re good questions. And there are as many answers as there are people asking them. But the keenest response is that nobody really knows, and we all know.

That’s the focus for Episode 12 of Zone Zero.

Welcome to Zone Zero – the ham radio contesting podcast. This is Bud, VA7ST. It‘s Labor Day weekend, and I have a confession. This weekend I operated in the Russian RTTY contest, and it was the first contest I’ve been in since July.

Yes, you heard correctly. I have been taking a summer break. Despite being a seasoned contest operator, it is truly amazing how you can lose your edge after just a few weeks of lapsing into no-contest mode. It took me several minutes on Friday evening to get the radios sorted out for RTTY and get back into he groove of seamless exchanges with other competitor.

It reminds me quite clearly that practice – getting on the air – is so vitally important.

And that has me thinking this week about why we do this. What’s the attraction.

The closest I can come to an answer is that it is compelling like an adrenaline rush you seek over and over again. And it’s comforting to be part of a community of avid fellow competitors. Belonging to a group, even one as hyper-competitive as the contesting community, is just plain neat. We share in wins and losses, and it truly is more about competing than winning or losing. The journey is the destination.

Before any contest, I psych myself up far beyond any realistic expectation of results. I look at how I did in previous years, I study the current band conditions, and for major contests I study how my competition fared.

That’s a lot of pre-contest preparation, and it doesn’t include the actual station itself — just the operator. This week, I thought I’d run through my routine so others can compare it with how they get ready for a contest.

The first step is to look at the calendar every week, and pick a target. Most weekends offer multiple events, and it’s your choice which you will make time for. In my case, I look for the contest that will offer the biggest bang per hour — the mot contacts, or the most opportunities to work new DX entities or counties, or add to my all-time prefix total. But mostly, I go for the contest offering the most contacts pr hour — DX or domestic.

And that’s because one of the prime motivator for my contesting is year-over-year comparisons with how my station performs. I make antenna and equipment changes — hopefully most of them improvements rather than steps backward — and I can generally gauge the benefit of station improvements from one contest to the same contest the following year.

3830

I recommend all contesters consider sharing their contest stories and scores on the 3830 website. Many of the world’s most active contesters do this, and it is a lot of fun to read what others have to say after a contest and see their unofficial – or claimed – scores as they come in.

After a contest, I will write down my thoughts about what worked, what didn’t, and any notable events such as finding an opening I didn’t expect – noting what time of day and where I was pointing. I will also note any new equipment used, or particularly good DX worked.

I use my own 3830 reports as sort of a personal diary — I track just about every contest I enter, and there are more than 800 of those records on...