Enjoy Two Weekends of Fun During the ARRL November Sweepstakes
The ARRL November Sweepstakes (SS) weekends loom large on the amateur radio contest horizon. The CW weekend is November 6 – 8, while the phone weekend is November 20 – 22. Both events begin on Saturday at 2100 UTC and conclude on Monday at 0259 UTC.
The SS offers operating categories for every preference. The goal for many seasoned SS operators is to complete a “clean sweep” by contacting all 84 ARRL and Radio Amateurs of Canada (RAC) Sections. Canada’s Prince Edward Island province joined the list last year. Most SS operators try to run up the contact and multiplier counts and stay in the chair for the full 24 (out of 30) allowable hours.
The competition can be fierce, and the pileups can be huge. In 2020, ARRL received 1,445 logs for the CW event and 2,046 for the phone event.
Some Sections are harder to contact than others. Northern Territories (NT) is always a challenge, but there’s a slim chance that snagging NT could be easier this year.
Gerry Hull, W1VE (also VE1RM), is hoping to operate as VY1AAA for both weekends, using “J” Allen’s, VY1JA, Yukon Territory station remotely from the US. Now in his mid-70s, Allen essentially retired from ham radio a few years ago due to health issues, but he’s bounced back this year with renewed enthusiasm and working to get a station and antennas ready for Hull to operate. At this point, he’s sorting through a backyard scrap pile that includes tower sections he had up in the past. He wants to get 80 – 100 feet assembled and clamped to a sturdy utility pole. Hull says Allen is committed to the task.
“VY1JA is now in re-construction,” Allen says on his QRZ.com profile. “There is only a small chance that it will be done and on the air for SS CW this year. If so, signals may be weaker than in the past, with only a 100 W Omni VII and wire antennas. Plans for building an amp failed, and antenna work has taken far longer than expected.”
Hull said if Allen does manage to erect the antenna support tower, VY1AAA will have inverted V antennas for 20 and 40 meters, which Hull considers “the money bands from Yukon on CW.”
“So, hoping for good weather and good health for J, and then we might have VY1AAA on for the masses for SS CW,” he said. Hull said if the CW weekend is successful, he’ll consider also operating in the phone event.
Other difficult Sections to contact include Delaware, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, Pacific, and North Dakota. (Alaska, Hawaii and other US territories in the ARRL Pacific Section, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands count as W/VE stations, not as DX, for the SS.)
Contesters, especially the less experienced, often want to know how to handle duplicate contacts (dupes). It’s almost a given that this will happen in SS. While some operators still set up a “hot key” to send “WKD B4” on CW when encountering a dupe, current best practice is to work the apparent dupe, log it, and move on. While dupes don’t earn any points, they also don’t mean you’ll incur a NIL (not-in-log) penalty if the apparent dupe did not log the initial contact for one reason or another.
The SS exchange is patterned on traffic-handling terminology. For both the CW and phone events, stations exchange a sequential serial number (no leading zeros are required), an operating category (precedence), call sign, the last two digits of the year first licensed (check), and ARRL/RAC Section.
Most areas of the US change from Daylight Saving Time to Standard Time at 2 AM local time on November 7, by moving clocks back 1 hour. UTC is not affected.
Logs are due within 7 days after the event is over. Certificates will be awarded in the top operator CW and Phone scores in each category in each ARRL/RAC Section and Division, and plaques will be awarded to the Overall and Division winners. Icom America is the principal awards sponsor.
An operating guide that relates some of the history and evolution of these North American contests is available under “Operating Guidelines” on the ARRL November Sweepstakes page.
