The "Every Ham" Radio Contest

I love the concept of radio communication; from playing with 27mhz “walkie talkies” as to kid, to CB and LMR as a teen, and then finally licensed amateur radio as an adult.

I’m just a nerd; learning about and experimenting with radio frequencies is just plain fun.

The Ragchew

The fact that I can communicate with stations across the country and around the world is fascinating… But I’ve found that I just don’t like actually talking on the radio. It’s not that I’m anti-social, I just find the conversation style itself to be very tiring.
I’ve noticed that a conversation on a radio (a “ragchew QSO”) tends to consist of dueling monologues; that is, one station talks for a solid minute or more on one or more topics, then the receiving station responds with their own minute or longer transmission¹. As someone who has a hard time remembering a name or callsign that I just heard, trying to mentally store and then form a response to the verbal equivalent of an entire page of a novel is incredibly draining.
Combine my poor recall with the fact that I never became particularly proficient in writing, yet alone shorthand, and these conversations turn radio into a chore rather than a joy.

Contests

“Contests” are antithesis to ragchew-style QSOs, and I quite like them for that fact, but they also come with their own issues. In a hobby filled to the brim with nerds, it’s unsurprising that these little contests are packed with pages of arcane rules. When you start talking about classes, grid-squares and station points, one could reasonably question whether you’re discussing amateur radio or D&D².
That’s not the problem, though, I’ve DM’d TTRPGs and the Field Day rules are still way simpler than the tomes of Pathfinder. For me, the problem is that I don’t have (and likely never will have) the space and money that would be required to construct a competitive station.

Field Day

Looking at a previous Field Day contest I participated in as an example, even within only my specific class, my score of just under 200 was the 7th lowest in the class, with the top station in my class scoring over 3,700. The top score in the entire contest that year was over 32,000.

Some of the contest is absolutely skill, but a lot of it comes down to logistics. The top scoring stations had teams of operators, and resources like commercial canopy tents (think outdoor wedding), power distribution networks, dozens of PCs and radios, multiple radio towers, porta-potties, and even catering… all in a contest that’s supposed to be about “field-expedient” operations. Compared to my single, battery-powered HF radio and a wire antenna I tossed into a tree, I didn’t stand a chance.

I absolutely don’t object to those teams, though. I think it’s awesome that they’ve got a team of committed folks who can spare the time and money, and at least one or two with the experience and know-how to coordinate all of the logistics that goes into such a set-up (even if it maybe misses the spirit of the event a bit). It’s a seriously impressive effort …But it’s also little discouraging.

The other discouraging aspect of the bigger contests is scheduling. Radio contests are what a gamer might call “a collectathon speedrun.” The objective in most contests is to collect as many “contacts” (two way communication with another station) as possible in finite amount of time. Depending on the contest, contacts might be worth different points based on a number of factors, but the general idea is the same: whoever has the most points at the end of the contest wins. For a big contest like Field Day, the contest period stretches out over days. Big teams can cycle operators over the entire period, like shift workers at a 7-Eleven. Even if a solo station treated a contest like a job and put in 8+ hours a day, they’d still be at a significant disadvantage.
On the other hand, some contests are very quick, lasting only an hour. These don’t require multiple shifts, but missing even 5 minutes of the contest can set a station back in their rankings and that one hour period might fall early in the morning, late at night, or in the middle of a work day depending on your location. Low-power stations might be ignored entirely, too, since any extra time trying to hear them takes time away from potential points.

Either way, I can’t help but feel like winning, or even ranking, is entirely unachievable for an “average” ham.

The EveryHam Contest

For me, I’d like to see some sort of “every ham” competition. Set a power limit that is widely accessible, like 25 watts, and set the time period to 24 hours. Multipliers are determined by band and mode, and points are based on distance.
This sounds typical enough, but here’s the catch: you can only submit 5 contacts.
Now the contest is focused on really pushing that 25 watts and digging into the noise. You could blast out RF for the entire 24 hours and collect hundreds of contacts, but you’re still only submitting five. Someone who carefully chooses their frequency and greyline timing could potentially work their radio for only 30 minutes and still win. Longer hours certainly increases the chances that you’ll get a high-scoring contact, but it doesn’t make you unbeatable. Same goes for team size: running several operators at a time gets you more contacts to choose from, but you’re still only submitting your best five.

I think this would help address a lot of the “issues” I have with most contests. Money and resources might help you score higher, but they don’t determine the winner. With a 24-hour window, almost anyone, regardless of location or occupation, can turn their radio on an hour (or even 30 minutes) and still have a chance for a competitive score. The extra time also allows stations to try to pull in those weaker signals.

In my opinion, this better captures the magic of amateur radio, gives stations of all sizes a fair competition, and allows operators to plan their radio time around their schedule instead of the other way around.

Does such a contest exist?

Let me know.

Until next time netizens!

Update: I’ve added a draft of the potential rules here.

Update to the Update: The official rules are now posted on EveryHam.org!