What is Contesting in Amateur Radio?

Contesting in Amateur Radio is all about ham-radio-clip-arttrying to establish two way communications with as many people as possible in a fixed amount of time. Each contest usually has a particular theme or challenge associated with it. For example, some encourage you to contact stations from as many continents as possible in a 24hr period, others focus on VHF/UHF operating techniques while others are all about operating from a location other than your home base.

A prime example of the last type of contest is the John Moyle Field Day contest held in March each year. The aim here is to operate a portable station for a 24hr period. You can participate in the contest as a home station, but you gain extra points for contacting portable stations. If you are operating portable then you get additional points for evey contact made.

There is a very active contest sub-group within AREG. Members have participated in many contests over the past couple of years including:

Past contesting achievements by AREG can be reviewed here.

To get an idea of what the group gets up to, take a look at this video produced by Theo VK5MTM shot at the 2014 John Moyle Field Day station operated portable from the Para Wirra conservation park in the Adelaide Hills.