Reply
 
LinkBack Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
  #1   Report Post  
Old July 17th 16, 06:22 PM posted to rec.radio.amateur.moderated,rec.radio.amateur.homebrew
external usenet poster
 
First recorded activity by RadioBanter: Oct 2015
Posts: 8
Default [HRH] Two Contests




///////////////////////////////////////////
Two Contests

Posted: 16 Jul 2016 10:04 AM PDT
http://w2pa.net/HRH/two-contests/


In the fall of 1929, mounting interest in another message handling contest
prompted a repeat of what ARRL Communications Manager F. E. Handy dubbed an
“International DX Contest” like the one held in February 1928 that had been
so popular.1 Since there had been both worldwide and US- and Canada-only
events, there were many proponents for each kind. So, Handy and the others
in the Communications Department decided that both would be held this time.

Today, test is considered shorthand for an on-air contest. But the term
actually arose from more than simply shortening a word. These first
contests had their roots in the various organized tests that had been run
for more than a decade. So although they were the direct antecedents of
modern contests, with rules, scoring and prizes, the early ones were meant
to help develop a community understanding of propagation on the shortwave
bands and push equipment design to improved levels of performance. Those
amateurs at the leading edge of the art were motivated to more efficiently
and effectively use the recently trimmed-back amateur bands, a motivation
that continues in full force today. The friendly competition of the tests
was an additional, more broadly appealing incentive. It was the same
combined incentive that had driven Leon Deloy to research and build his
station to be the first in Europe to contact North America. A single QSO
was enough to win first place in 1923.

If previous test activity was any indication of the potential of new
ones—each of the last two successive events had seen increased
participation—they should certainly serve to stress the capacity of the new
band limits. They would also challenge amateurs seeking to test out their
1929-type stations. Modern equipment combined with good operating practice
would be the essence of a winning effort. Intelligent use of all the bands
would also be essential, but no one quite knew how to do that yet. The
contests would help amateurs develop a better understanding of the new
bands’ individual personalities, especially a wider appreciation of the
underused 14,000-kHz band.

Handy predicted,

New contacts and friendships will be made. The first contest will put each
participant in touch with others in many parts of this continent. The
second will promote international friendships. Courtesy (or QSL) cards will
follow in quantity if the experience of our forwarding bureau is any
indication. Several months were required to clear the hook of the thousands
of cards that were received to be sent through Headquarters after our last
test.

Though they did not yet recognize its significance, solar cycle 16 was now
more than half way through its declining phase. The two contests would run
under less than ideal conditions. So, whatever hams would learn about the
nature of the new higher frequency bands would only hint at what would
eventually be possible.



In the first event, running from 18 through 31 January 1930 (GMT), stations
in the US and Canada could work each other and exchange test messages in
standard ARRL format. Named the All-Section Sweepstakes Contest, it was the
progenitor of the November Sweepstakes that runs today.2

Each station could be worked only once regardless of band and each test
message had to be different and contain at least ten words. “Rubber stamp”
or trivial messages would not be credited. “This will call for individual
originality in making up messages to be sent to each station worked,”
reiterated Handy (certainly an understatement!) to ensure there was no
misunderstanding. The two messages for a specific station (to and from, the
origin of the Sweepstakes’ two-point contacts) did not need to be handled
during the same contact. In 1930, loose coupling evidently applied to QSOs,
too, not just transmitter-antenna connections.

As you might expect, requiring two original messages in each QSO prompted
lots of questions about what would not be considered “rubber stamp” or
trivial. Handy replied to a published question from VE3ZZ with some
suggestions:

… questions or facts pertaining to the apparatus in stations, localities,
opinions regarding conditions, DX, traffic or radiophone operation,
comments on the characteristics of different amateur frequencies,
off-frequency operation, regulations, the interference question, high
quality signals, beginners, broadcast or ship operating, organization work,
Army or Navy Net operation, station descriptions, QST articles, message
procedure, laws, etc. would make excellent, texts for messages to be
originated in the contest, not to mention the variety of non-radio subjects
that could be called upon when operators in remote districts may find
themselves short of regular traffic.

Clearly he had no problem with this requirement, oblivious to the
scaling-up problem that could present itself in years to come as QSO totals
increased.3

A final score was calculated by awarding one point for each message sent or
received multiplied by the number of sections worked (a maximum of 68).
“This will make our contest more interesting and general in its character,”
wrote Handy. But since a valid contact must contain both a sent and
received message, half-done QSOs would not count at all.

Pre-arranged skeds were permitted but, it was thought, would not be of much
advantage. “Hit-or-miss work over the air will be necessary in any case to
run up a score as fast as QSO’s can be made and messages put through in
both directions.” But stations heard operating outside the bands would be
disqualified as in the previous contest.

Advance registration was not required this time, probably to encourage more
participation. Copies of each message sent and received for the contest had
to be submitted as part of a valid entry, and would serve as proof of a
valid contact. A log needed to be submitted along with the messages showing
a list of stations and sections contacted (not necessarily in chronological
order as required today). Entries had to be received at headquarters by 20
February 1930, three weeks after the end of the contest. Certificates would
be awarded to the high scorer in each ARRL section. As before, ARRL
headquarters stations and staff would not be eligible for awards but would
participate.



The second event, involving the entire world, would run from 15 through 28
February 1930 (GMT) and was called the Third International Relay
Competition, a progenitor of today’s ARRL DX Contest. American and Canadian
stations, including stations located in US territories, would work everyone
else, and needed to register in advance for participation. Stations around
the world could simply participate at will but could work only the US and
Canada.

As in the previous contest, US and Canadian stations had to pre-register
two weeks prior to the event and would send test messages, provided to them
just before the contest started, to foreign stations who then would send
reply messages to W/VE stations other than the ones from which they were
received. Reply messages had to contain the assigned serial number from the
original test message and a ten-word text that was different each time,
just as in the Sweepstakes. Furthermore, a reply had to actually answer a
question posed in the original message!4 For W/VE stations, sending a test
message counted one point, receiving a reply counted two, and for the rest
of the world, receiving a test message counted one, sending a reply counted
two.

A winner would be named from each ARRL section and each area of the world
having a different call sign prefix. Going by section, rather than having
prizes for the top 25 in the entire US and Canada, was intended to satisfy
criticism from West Coast stations that the 1928 contest had favored East
Coast stations because of their distance advantage for working the great
number of European participants.

But since there was still interest in a national (US or Canada) high-score
list, they also devised a handicapping arrangement for weighting contacts
with various continents according to whether a participant was located more
or less west or east of the Mississippi River (i.e., Minnesota, Iowa,
Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana and Ontario were the western-most states and
provinces designated to be in the eastern area.5

The final score was then calculated as the number of message points for a
QSO, each multiplied by its appropriate weighting factor, totaled up and
then multiplied by the number of continents worked. A foreign station’s
score was their message total multiplied by the number of US and Canadian
call districts worked (at that time, a maximum of only 9 and 5,
respectively).



Upon defeating the British Navy at Dover in 1652, the appropriately-named
Dutch commander, Admiral Tromp, “sailed up the English Channel with a broom
hoisted at the masthead of his flagship, denoting that he had successfully
‘swept the seas,’” wrote F. E. Handy.6

Therefore, the three highest-scoring entries in the All-Section
Sweepstakes, having similarly “swept the air” would receive as a trophy a
sweep-broom decked out in black and gold League colors and constructed
using radio materials, including a “symbolic vacuum tube” attached to the
handle. At three feet long for the top prize, with second and third place
brooms each incrementally shorter, the trophies would have the winners’
call signs “inscribed in black on a background of varnished cambric, better
known to amateur constructors as empire cloth7 Certificates of Performance,
awarded to the high scorer in each ARRL section, also displayed a small
picture of the three brooms as emblems of the event.

In the International Relay Competition, Certificates of Merit would be
awarded to high scorers in each ARRL section and as many “foreign
localities” as had entered.



The cover of the May 1930 issue of QST was illustrated with a cartoon drawn
by Philip “Gil” Gildersleeve, W1CJD—his first cover drawing. Gil had been
drawing cartoons for QST since June 1927, beginning a long and popular run
of hundreds. Inside, the results of the All-Section Sweepstakes declared
W1ADW the winner with a “clean sweep,” which simply meant he had the
highest score—different from what it means today, working all ARRL
sections. Operating on the 80-, 40- and 20-meter bands, he had exchanged
messages with 153 stations in forty-three of the sixty-eight ARRL sections
for a score of 13,158.8 Rounding out the top three broom winners were W9DEX
and W2BAI, who took third place despite beginning his operation one week
late!

Ninety stations from forty-eight sections reported their results. Only one,
W9GHI, used phone during the contest, mostly in the 80-meter segment.

Many who entered expressed their enjoyment and asked for more such events
to be scheduled. The most common, nearly universal problem they reported
was having to explain the contest to more than half the stations they
worked. Handy attributed this to an abundance of amateurs who “do not
properly read QST.”

Though it ran one month later than the Sweepstakes, the results of the
International Relay Competition took three more months to be reported.9 In
the US and Canada, W6BAX finished on top with 3,210 points, with W2CXL in
second with 2,945, working 83 stations. W6BAX’s QSO total was not reported
but it was lower than W2DXL’s despite having a higher score, likely due to
the weighting scheme. CM8UF topped the DX entries with 3,564 points.

There would be many more changes to both events in the coming years . The
declining solar cycle notwithstanding, contests clearly made the bands come
alive and were both fun and useful.



de W2PA



F. E. Handy, Coming–Operating Activities, QST, December 1929, 37.
The November Sweepstakes dates back to its first running in 1933.
F. E. Handy, Trophies and Certificates for the January and February
Contests, QST, January 1930, 82.
Queries About Our February Contest, The Third International Relay Party,
The Communications Department, QST, February 1930, III.
The weighting factors applied to QSOs would be (listed as east, west):
Europe 3, 11; Africa 1.5, 10; South America 3, 3; Mesopotamia, Iraq and
Palestine 5, 15; Asia (China, Japan, Malay States, E. Siberia, Siam, French
Indo-China) 20, 10; Oceania 4, 3; North America (Alaska 4, 3), (Mexico and
all Central American countries 3,3), (Porto Rico, Cuba, Bermuda, Bahamas,
and Antilles 2, 3), (Greenland, Iceland, Newfoundland and Labrador 2, 3).
F. E. Handy, Trophies and Certificates for the January and February
Contests, QST, January 1930, 15.
Cotton fabric impregnated with oxidized oil and used as electrical
insulation.
E. L. Battey, The All-Section Sweepstakes Contest, QST, May 1930, 43.
E. L. Battey, The Third International Relay Competition, QST, August 1930,
17.




Reply
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search
Display Modes

Posting Rules

Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are On
Pingbacks are On
Refbacks are On


Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
[HRH] Two Contests HRH via rec.radio.amateur.moderated Admin Homebrew 0 July 17th 16 06:22 PM
[IVARC] May Contests IVARC via rec.radio.info Admin Info 0 May 2nd 16 03:56 AM
Morse and Contests Mike Coslo Policy 118 May 18th 04 02:58 PM
Contests ? Torbjørn Morka Dx 6 October 12th 03 11:43 PM
Contests ? Torbjørn Morka Dx 0 September 15th 03 01:20 AM


All times are GMT +1. The time now is 02:04 AM.

Powered by vBulletin® Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright 2004-2024 RadioBanter.
The comments are property of their posters.
 

About Us

"It's about Radio"

 

Copyright © 2017