Well, participating in a world wide, 48 hour DX contest as a multi-multi station is a huge undertaking. Most M/M stations concentrate on a few big contests in a year. For most NA stations these contest are the ARRL DX CW and Phone contest and the CQWW DX CW and Phone contest. This means that you need assemble a large group of (skilled) operators 4 weekends in a year.

In addition, I learned on a British Contest University that some contesters dislike the CQ WPX contests because of the huge amount multipliers.

If and when my Heil Pro-Set Plus breaks down, I will probably go for one of these:
http://www.arlancommunications.com/

These products also get very good reviews and are in the same price range as the now discontinued Pro-Set Plus.

Why Bob discontinued the Pro Set Plus is something I don't realy understand. I thought the Pro-Set Plus was big but the new Pro-Set Elite realy looks hideous

On 10 meters we only logged about 80 US/VE stations, most of them on Sunday. 15 meter was good and 20 Meter was OK, just slightly more Q's then on 15 meter.
Propagation on 40 was good but overhere in Europe it was very crowded and at times nearly impossible to keep a good run frequency.
80 Meters was OK but again, very crowded. Furthermore we could also use some gain towards NA on that band.
On 160 we only worked a handfull US/VE's, we could only hear the big guns. In addition our 1/4 wave vertical was out of order so we only had a very low dipole and slooper.

All in All we logged a little over 3000 Q's which wasn't really what we had hoped for. Despite the marginal amount of Q's in the log, we still had a great time.

I have mentioned it before and I will say it again, it is so easy to maintain a high QSO rate when running US/VE stations. A bit of discipline obviously goes a long way. For operators in other parts of the world (to be diplomatic ) it seems a little to much to comprehend.

73, Maarten PD2R (@ PI4DX)

KQ0C: You are obviously right but we also have Alaska and Hawaii. Furthermore there are other countries with higher power limits then 1 kW and by far the most of them send "K" as well.

N3QE: Thanks for the info. Unfortunately there is no simple abbriviation for 400 Watts in Phone. I guess we just have to work a little harder ;-)

I'm always envious of those people who are able to send "K" instead of "one thousand" ("1000" in CW). In The Netherlands when you a running Dutch legal power limit, you need to send "four hundred" ("400" in CW). I was wandering if there is an abbriviation for that as well?

Most of the US stations are running US legal limit which is 1500 Watts. The vast majority just sends "59(9) K". I suspect that they are not reducing their power to 1000 Watts. If that is the case, can we just send "59 ten" ("599 10" in CW) instead of "59 four hundred" ("599 400" in CW)?

I assume that the contest sponser will consider this as bad operating practice. But then again, they don't seem to have any problems with stations sending "K" wilst running 1500 Watts. Obviously the difference between 10 and 400 Watts is much bigger then the difference between a 1000 and 1500 Watts. But where do they draw the line?

Just curious about this...

Check out the modular system of Elecraft. You can order a bare K3 and later add other functions if and when you need or want them.
http://elecraft.com/

That rule only applies to entrants of the contest who submit their logs. Those are the ones competing against each other and they want to know how well they did compared to other operators.
The casual operator that doesn't care about his score or how well he or she did, can use whatever power he or she's wants (within the limits of their license).
If they do want to submit their logs (which is recommended), they can submit their logs as a checklog.

Yes, there could be some truth to your echo mic story. Of all the HF bands, 10 meters is probably were the most CB equipment is being used. So the chance of running into a operators using a CB echo microphone is probably the greatest on 10 meters.

Still, conditions were great and I heard multi path echo's almost the entire contest.

G7MRV: Trust me, I have operated in quite a few contest from reasonably big contest stations. I think I can count the times I heard a contest station using an echo microphone on just one hand. I'm pretty sure that most of the times you were hearing multi path propagation signals and not echo microphones.
The fact the you heard some stations with an echo and others without an echo while both were from te same region, probably had everyting to do with the power level, the antenna (directional or omni directional) that was used and the surrounding terrain of the station (mountains or clear take-off angles).

This contest was definately a blast. Propagation wasn't as good as during the CQ WW SSB but still very good non the less. Sometimes I could hear the very last part of my own call. On the CQ contest reflector I found out that I wasn't the only one who had that experience.

73, Maarten
PD2R (operated from the PI4DX contest station)

Keep in mind that a lot of the build in tuners will only tune an SWR up to 3:1. In reality this means that you will only be able to tune a more or less resonant antenna at the edges of the bands.
Internal antenna tuners kan be a good choise if you use resonant antennas. If not, your most likely be better of with an external tuner.

Funny That you mentioned this. A couple of day ago I was operating the PI4DX club station and is was working NA stations. One OM kept saying "we" when he actually meant "I".
I never noticed this " bad habit" before so I actually thought he wasn't alone is his shack. At one point during the QSO I asked him who the other person was. He replied that he was alone and apologized for it.
I too thought the "royal we" was a bit strange but it didn't really bother me.

Holland and several other countries in Europe have licenses with frequency limitations.
Here in Holland we have two licenses, Full and Novice.
Full: All bands, 400 Watt
Novice: 7.050 to 7.100, 14.000 to 14.250, 28.000 to 29.700, 144 to 146 and 430 to 440 MHz with 25 Watts.

Allthough I hold a Novice license and I would love to be able to roam all the HF bands, I really do think frequency limitations is the way to go.
The power limitations they should set to 100 Watts since that is what most of the transceivers make these days.
In Belgium a Novice can only use transceivers rated with a maximum output of 10 Watts. Now that really sucks since there aren't many transceivers around with a maximum output of just 10 Watts.

When I as a Novice go to Germany, I'm only allowed to use the 80, 15 and the 10 meter bands with 100 Watts. When I go to Denmark I'm allowed to use all bands with 100 Watts.
In some other countries I'm not allowed to operate at all or at different frequencies and power levels.

Confusing to say the least.

O well, yet another thing to take into account when choosing your holiday destination. I could either go to Denmark or pick a spot on the German/Dutch border ;-)

When hams type in all caps that usually means they have RFI problems ;-)

In almost all of the contest I usually work a couple of stations that do not know the proper exchange for that particular contest. Most of the time they will give either their state or a serial number (usually "001"). Al most always I take a little time to explain what exchange I need for this particular contest. I always try to be as polite as possible. If the other operator figures out the correct exchange then I want him to come back and work me again so I can claim points for the contact.

Everyone can make a mistake and sending the wrong exchange is certainly no reason to get your "ass chewed".
Operators who get aggravated by such a minor mistake is what gives contesters a bad reputation.

There's a wiki page on contesting as well: http://wiki.contesting.com/index.php/Main_Page

You don't have to send in your log but as others have mentioned it's not that difficult and it will make the adjudicators job a lot easier.

N1MM is a free program which supports almost all the contests you can enter. With N1MM its easy to generate a Cabrillo log file. Most of the time you are able to find the email address to send in log in the contest rules.

Join the fun and be prepared to make a couple of mistakes in your first contests. It's not a big deal as long as you learn form it.

Hello Dave,

I guess the answer to your question depends on a couple of factors. How serious do you want to participate in contesting? What modes do you prefer? What antennas do you have?

Furthermore, what rig are you coming from? If you used a FT 817 as you main rig on HF up till now, you'd probably love the FT 950 since that is a big step up. If you used top of the line transceivers of yesteryear you'd might be disappointed.

Budget is also a important factor. You could also consider buying a used FT 1000 MP or Mark V field. Both are proven contest rigs and you will keep some money in your pocket. With the money you saved you can install some Inrad filters to improve selectivity. With the build in second receiver you may not need a second transceiver right away.

I've heard good and bad things about the FT 950 but i guess it's not a bad choice all things considered. Again, it all depends on what you want it to do and what you want to do with it.

Hope this helps...

73, Maarten
PD2R