By Dale Holloway, K4EQ
After living eighteen months in the St. Louis area, I finally joined the SLQS earlier this year. Already I’ve discovered a group of hams who are very friendly and helpful They’re also much more technologically savvy than I am. Consequently, when it comes to the technical side of radio, I tend to adhere the familiar old adage that it’s better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. I hate it when I don’t follow that wise advice.
Probably the best and safest way I can contribute to the club is through the experience I’ve gained since I entered the QRP world. That was in 1980 after I built a Heathkit HW-8 and joined the Michigan QRP Club. I was hooked when my first contact was with DK4KK.
In the late 90s I began entering contests in the QRP category. I finished first place from Tennessee in my first contest and decided this was something I might be able to have some success doing. A couple of years later I set a CW QRP record for the Delta Division from Tennessee in the ARRL Ten-Meter Contest. There have been a few more wins since then, including another record from another Division.
What follows are some tips I’ve picked up doing CW QRP contesting that may help you improve your contest scores. I’m sure some of you could add to this list and it would be great if you were to write them up for us. I’d sure love to learn more.
1. Decide on your goal for the contest. Are you in it to win? Do you only want to pick up some new counties, grids, states or countries? Maybe you simply want to give other contestants a few points. Those are all valid reasons for entering a contest whether QRP or high power. The main thing is to have fun doing it! The rest of my tips will assume you’re in it to win.
2. Know the rules for the contest. It can hurt you big time if you don’t understand the rules correctly. I know because I didn’t realize for the Missouri QSO Party last April we could work and count stations from other states who were calling CQ for their state’s QSO party. I should have known better and it cost me a lot of points.
3. Get over the “I’m only QRP” mentality. It’s amazing how our mental approach to things in life makes a difference in our outcomes. If we think we can’t succeed at something, we probably won’t because we have a losing mentality. A “yes-I-can” mentality is the sign of a high achiever.
If you want to be a high achiever in contesting with QRP, stop thinking you’re only QRP. You are not only QRP, you are QRP! You’re one of the few and the brave. Approach the contest as if you’re running a KW and a 6-elements at 75 feet. You can do it. You can score big in a QRP category. Don’t worry about the big guns with the KWs and gobs of metal in the sky. They’re in another contest category and they can only help not hurt you.
4. Remember, the big guns need you as much as you need them. Sometimes you may be tempted to think those big guns don’t need you (bad QRP mentality!). Yes they do! They need you as much as you need them. They definitely need your points and they may even need you as a multiplier. Go after them!
5. Understand you will normally need to call CQ. There are two primary ways to work a contest: search and pounce or call CQ. A lot of QRPers only search and pounce. They hear a strong station calling CQ and call them back. They hear a new multiplier and they give them a call. That works great if you are simply looking for a new grid, county, state, or country. There’s nothing wrong with that if that’s what you want to do, but it’s normally not a winning strategy. Normally you win by knowing how to use both methods to your advantage.
Admittedly, calling CQ and having long runs can be difficult in major contests such as the CQ World-Wide DX Contest or the ARRL International DX Contest where finding a spot to call CQ can be as tough as squeezing a screwdriver through the eye of a needle. When that happens, start looking for a spot higher in the band where the stations tend to thin out. Even there it can get crowded, but usually you can find a spot. Remember, they need you as much as you need them. Many of them will find you.
A good trick 10-15 minutes before a contest is to find a clear spot 35-50 kHz up the band and try to hold the frequency by sending v’s and test along with your call sign. That attracts attention and alerts others the frequency is in use. If you have a 1x1 special event call sign, that’s even better, particularly in your state’s QSO party. In my case, living in Missouri with a 4-land call sign, it’s practically a must for our QSO Party.
When should you use the search and pounce method? If you’ve been calling CQ for several minutes with little if any response, it’s probably time to either QSY somewhere or do a little S&P. And in the last couple of hours of the contest, it’s good to start looking for needed multipliers. Depending on your score and the contest, one additional multiplier can be worth hundreds of points.
6. Be adaptable. One more thing about calling CQ vs. search and pounce. You have to adapt to the contest. In the April MOQP I called CQ almost the whole time because every other state was looking for Missouri. However, in the May 7th Area QSO Party, I never ended up calling CQ. It was entirely S&P and I ended up with a respectable but far from great 110 QSOs. I know this seems to conflict with tip #5, but my point is as QRPers we need to adapt our style as to the contest and our goals.
7. Don’t sign /qrp with your call sign. That probably goes without saying for a contest (or calling DX in general).
8. Use your DXing skills. Contesting certainly can help us improve our skills chasing DX, but it works the other way too. Some of the tricks you’ve learned to catch DX obviously will work in contests, especially running QRP. One of the things I often do when a DX station is running a pileup on CW is to send my call sign 40-50 Hz lower than his frequency. Sometimes that slight change of pitch is all it takes to snag the DX. It can be effective in contesting too.
Hopefully, these tips will help you improve your QRP contest scores. As I mentioned previously, it would be great if you would share some of your tips with the rest of us too.