November 11 is a great beginners contest weekend!

 

Two VHF contests to get you started

There are not one, but two VHF contests on the November 11th holiday weekend. These should be easy to work for both beginners and experienced hams alike.

2m QSO Party

Saturday 2023-11-11  10:00 – 14:30 (Pacific Time - Vancouver)
https://wp.rac.ca/144-mhz-2m-page/

This contest is open to all certified amateurs. Each QSO must have one station within Metro Vancouver, Vancouver and Gulf Islands, Southwest BC (Grids CN79, CN89 and CN99) or Northwest WA (only Grid Squares along the Canada-USA border: CN78, CN88, CN98) in order to be considered for points.

Valid FM operating frequencies include 146.415, 146.430, 146.445, 146.460, 146.475, 146.490, 146.505, 146.535, 146.550, 146.565, 146.580, 146.595, 147.420, 147.450, 147.480, 147.510, 147.540, 147.570 MHz. Valid SSB operating frequencies are between 144.200 and 144.275.

And…

The Repeater Roundabout

The Repeater Roundabout is a weekend-long event held on many of NW Washington’s nearby repeaters. The goal is to meet new people and work repeaters you might not usually key up. It’s also a great way to get started with ham radio contests for folk who are primarily repeater users. Light up the airwaves and make some noise on the great repeaters in the Puget Sound area, with a decent antenna and some height, most from Seattle north are accessible to us in southwest BC!

The Repeater Roundabout will begin on November 11th, 2023 at 00:00, and end on November 12th, 2023 at 23:59, Pacific time.

Anyone with a ham radio license can participate ! You don’t even have to be local; stations may participate over Echolink, Allstar, or IRLP if they are available.

Joining the Repeater Roundabout

To get started, check out the Rules page.

Then, check out the list of 91 participating repeaters from across 43 radio groups that you’ll play on during the contest. You can also view the map to see where the repeaters are located.

The website  provides files to program your radios with CHiRP and other software.

Visit their logging page to log your contacts and submit your logs for scoring.

Join their Discord chat server to chat with other participants, arrange skeds, and get help.

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