Operating the ARRL November Sweepstakes at the Club

I had heard there was an AARL Sweepstakes going on this past weekend (at least on the fifteenth), doing HF contesting. I decided to head to my local radio club, W3HZU, with the intention of observing how everything was done and getting familiar with the process.

It is definitely all a bit overwhelming at first, there’s so much information being exchanged in short hand, and over HF, meaning half the people you were hugging your headphones to hear anyways. After watching the two more experienced operators go at it for a while, and several offers from them for me to participate (something I didn’t know I was allowed to do before hand), but declined several times because of how anxious it made me. Well, when one of the guys stepped out, I was up, and I was “made” to participate.

I operated the microphone itself, while the more experienced operator listened and entered data into the software being used to track the contacts – my job, read off what was printed in the corner of the screen. Still flubbed on the phonetics a few times, getting caught because I’m used to using my call sign, and I have as call sign starting in Whisky as well. Eventually I got into the flow though, and got confident in reading out the information, and got a sense of when and how to communicate everything.

It was very much a fun learning experience, and am glad I was “pressured” into participation. The one operator there remarked “I think contest operators make a better emcomm operator than somebody who just does emcomm” and it makes sense. There was so much information being exchanged, over really weak connections, limited time, and a bunch of other people also trying to work that same contact. It was stressful, and they’re doing it purely for entertainment, before it becomes a needed skill.

I am glad I participated, though, my dreams were haunted the entire night by “nightmares” of messing up the exchange or forgetting the call sign, waking up panicked and irritated several times to the point of annoyance the night after.