A radio contest is a set period, often a weekend and sometimes a single day, when operators try to make as many valid two-way contacts as they can. Each contact, or QSO, means trading a short, specific piece of information called the exchange. Your score usually comes from your contact points multiplied by your multipliers: the different provinces, states, countries, zones or grid squares you managed to reach.

Contest weekends are the busiest of the year. A band that sounds empty on a Tuesday fills edge to edge with stations eager to log you.

Why try it, even if you never want to win

Most people in a contest aren’t chasing a trophy. You can drop in for twenty minutes, hand out some points and leave. Every station you work is glad of the contact.

The anatomy of a contest contact

A contest QSO is short on purpose: call signs, the exchange, a thank-you, next. The examples use the made-up calls VE6XYZ (Alberta) and VE3XYZ (Ontario).

On SSB (voice): RAC Canada Day Contest

About ten seconds. In the RAC contests, Canadians send a signal report plus province or territory.

On CW (Morse code): the same contact

“5NN” is contest shorthand for 599. N is the short Morse form of 9, so it is quicker to send. “TU” means thank you.

On FT8: ARRL International Digital Contest

In the ARRL Digital Contest the exchange is your four-character grid square, which normal FT8 messages already carry. Lethbridge is in DN39.

Some contests use a different exchange; WSJT-X has a special-activity setting for a few, such as Field Day. See FT8 setup.

The words you’ll hear

• 59 / 599 / 5NN. In contests almost everyone gives “five nine.” It’s a formality, not a measurement.
• Serial number. A running count of your contacts: 001, 002 and so on.
• Zone. CQ World Wide uses 40 CQ zones. Alberta is zone 4.
• Province or state. Albertans send “AB” on CW or digital and “Alberta” on voice.
• TU QRZ. “Thank you, who’s next?”
• Partial call. In a crowd the running station may hear only part of your call: “the Six X-ray, again?” Answer with your full call sign, clearly, once or twice.
• Phonetics. Use the standard ITU alphabet (Alpha, Bravo, Charlie…).
• Dupe. A repeat contact on the same band and mode. It earns nothing.

How to get those contacts

Tips for a modest station

1. Listen first. Before you call, know the station’s call sign and what exchange they are sending.
2. Call at the right moment. Call just after the running station says “TU” or “QRZ,” not while they are still finishing with someone else.
3. Short and clear. Say your call once on voice, or send it once or twice on CW. Don’t add “this is” or “from Lethbridge.”
4. Move around. If a pileup isn’t going your way after a few tries, tune on and come back later.
5. Use the clock. In general, 20 m, 15 m and 10 m work best in daylight, while 40 m, 80 m and 160 m come alive after dark. See the band-by-band guide.
6. Catch the grey line. Around sunrise and sunset, low-band signals along the twilight line can be surprisingly strong. See Winter is grey-line season on the low bands.
7. Know where the sun stands. Most observers put the peak of Solar Cycle 25 around 2024 to 2025. As it declines, 10 m and 15 m openings will gradually become shorter and less frequent. Check space weather and MUF before a contest.

Why your VE6 or VA6 call is worth something

In contests that count provinces as multipliers, such as the Canada Day and Canada Winter contests, ARRL Sweepstakes, the North American QSO Party and the ARRL DX and 10-Metre contests, every Alberta station is a multiplier somebody needs. Alberta usually has fewer active contesters than Ontario or the big US states, so a VE6 or VA6 call often draws extra callers.

See where your signal goes

Three real-time networks show who is hearing whom:

• The DX cluster carries “spots”: operators posting who they heard and on what frequency.
• The Reverse Beacon Network (RBN) uses automatic receivers that decode CW and report who they heard. Call CQ for a minute and see where you landed.
• PSK Reporter does the same for FT8 and other digital modes.

Before you start, open PropMap and read Check before you call using PropMap. To test your antenna between contests, try watching your own signal travel with WSPR.

Contest etiquette

A few habits keep contest weekends friendly for everyone, including people who aren’t in the contest.

Logging: the part that counts

In a contest, the log is your score. Each contact is checked against the other station’s log, so accuracy beats speed.

Time in UTC, and get it right

Contests run in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). Alberta Time is UTC−6 all year, so a contest that starts at 0000 UTC Saturday actually begins at 6 pm Friday in Lethbridge. Log checkers match contacts partly by time, so sync your computer clock to the internet and write UTC on paper logs.

Paper or software?

Paper works for a handful of contacts, but most sponsors now want electronic logs. RAC no longer accepts paper logs for its contests, although it has offered utilities to turn a paper log into an electronic one. ARRL says that from September 30, 2026, online submission will be the only accepted method for its HF contests.

Contest software flags dupes, tracks multipliers and creates the file you submit. N1MM Logger+ (n1mm.com) is a free Windows program used by a great many contesters. Other free loggers exist, including some for Mac and Linux. Practise with it before contest day.

The Cabrillo file and log submission

Cabrillo is the plain-text log format almost every contest sponsor accepts. Your logger writes it for you. RAC publishes its own Cabrillo specification on its contesting page.

Each sponsor has its own upload page and deadline, which can be short. CQ World Wide, for example, wants logs within 48 hours, and the ARRL DX contest within seven days. Even a ten-contact log helps the sponsor check everyone else. If you don’t want to compete, you can submit a check log.

Many sponsors later publish results and send log-checking reports showing any calls you copied wrong. Free coaching.

Confirming contacts and earning awards

Upload your contest contacts to ARRL’s Logbook of The World (LoTW). There’s no fee for the certificate or for uploading contacts; you pay only when you apply confirmed contacts toward an award. LoTW credits can be used for DXCC, WAS (Worked All States), WAZ (Worked All Zones), WPX and VUCC. For Canadian awards, RAC’s Canadaward asks for contacts with every province and territory, and Worked All RAC asks for at least ten official RAC stations. See also the logbook page.

Popular contests worth trying from Alberta

Rules below were checked on each sponsor’s official page. Dates follow a pattern, but confirm on the rules page before the weekend.

“RS(T)” means signal report: two digits on voice (59), three on CW (599). In CQ WW, contacts with other stations in Canada score zero points but still count toward multipliers.

Field Day: the big one

ARRL says plainly that Field Day “is not a contest,” though it is scored like one. It is an emergency-preparedness exercise and a public showcase for amateur radio, sponsored by ARRL and RAC and organized mainly by ARRL. Clubs and families set up temporary stations and work as many stations as they can. It runs on the fourth full weekend of June, from 1800 UTC Saturday (noon in Alberta) to 2059 UTC Sunday.

Classes, made simple

Your Field Day exchange is your class plus your section. The class is a number (how many transmitters can be on the air at once) followed by a letter (what kind of station you are). Alberta’s section is AB.

Power limits are 500 W for classes A, B and C, and 100 W for D, E and F. Low-power battery stations earn bigger multipliers. Phone contacts are worth 1 point; CW and digital contacts are worth 2. Field Day uses 160, 80, 40, 20, 15 and 10 m and everything from 6 m up; no WARC bands.

Bonus points

Bonuses reward the things Field Day is meant to practise:

• 100% emergency power: 100 points per transmitter (classes A, B, C, E and F).
• Public location and a public information table: 100 points each (classes A, B and F).
• Media publicity, social media promotion, an invited elected official or served-agency representative visiting: 100 points each.
• Youth participation, an educational activity, a satellite contact, natural power and message handling earn bonuses too.
• Club stations can run a GOTA (“Get On The Air”) station for new operators, with a coach.

Bonuses, and how Canadian groups claim the section-manager message bonus, can change. Read the current ARRL Field Day page and RAC’s Field Day notice.

A simple family or club Field Day

A picnic table, a radio, a deep-cycle battery and a wire antenna on a push-up mast is a real Field Day station. Run it as “1B AB” with a friend, or “1E AB” from your back yard on battery.

• Start with the field setup checklist and portable operations.
• Pick an antenna from portable antennas.
• Fuse and wire your battery properly with power wiring.
• Tie the weekend to real readiness with emergency communications.

Winter Field Day

Winter Field Day is a separate event run by the Winter Field Day Association, on the fourth full weekend of January (the association lists January 23 to 24, 2027). Recent rules use classes for Home (H), Indoor (I), Outdoor (O) and Mobile (M), cap power at 100 W, exclude 60 m and the WARC bands, and don’t allow FT8 or FT4. Instead of bonus points, you earn “objective” multipliers for things like operating away from home, on alternative power or on six bands.

The Canada Day and Canada Winter contests

These two RAC contests may be the friendliest first contest a Canadian can enter. Both run 0000 to 2359 UTC: Canada Day on July 1, and the Winter contest on a Saturday in December (RAC used December 20 in 2025 and December 28 in 2024). Because 0000 UTC is 6 pm the evening before here, Canada Day starts on the evening of June 30 in Alberta.

The RAC official stations

RAC lists 15 official stations worth 20 points each: VA2RAC, VA3RAC, VE1RAC, VE3RHQ, VE4RAC, VE5RAC, VE6RAC, VE7RAC, VE8RAC, VE9RAC, VO1RAC, VO2RAC, VY0RAC, VY1RAC and VY2RAC. VE6RAC is Alberta’s. Ten of them earns Worked All RAC.

Finding Alberta and Canadian activity

• RAC suggests SSB frequencies of 1850, 3775, 7060, 7225, 14175, 21250 and 28500 kHz. Watch 7060 kHz for conflicts with other modes.
• For CW, look about 25 kHz up from the bottom of each band, and check for CW activity on the half hour.
• In the evening, 75 m and 40 m are your best bet for working Saskatchewan, Manitoba, BC and other Albertans. In daylight, 20 m reaches Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes.
• Filter the DX cluster for VE and VA stations, and ask your local club who plans to be on.

Logs go through RAC’s web log submission system, linked from the RAC contesting page, in RAC Cabrillo format. The 2026 Canada Day deadline was 14 days after the contest; check each year’s rules.

Your first contest in 10 steps

1. Pick a contest: Canada Day, NAQP or Field Day.
2. Read the rules on the sponsor’s page: dates in UTC, bands, the exact exchange and the log deadline.
3. Check your privileges. Basic only? Plan on 6 m and 2 m, or a VHF contest.
4. Install and set up a logger a week ahead. and log a few practice contacts.
5. Set your clock to internet time and note the start time in both UTC and Alberta Time.
6. Check conditions on PropMap and space weather so you know which bands to try first.
7. Listen for ten minutes before making a contact.
8. Search and pounce. Answer CQs, send the exact exchange, log carefully, say thanks and move on.
9. Take breaks, and stop when it stops being fun. Twenty contacts is a fine first log.
10. Submit your log as a Cabrillo file before the deadline, then upload to LoTW and look for your results.

Exchange cheat sheet

Print this and keep it by the radio. The examples are what an Alberta station sends. The call signs in each row are placeholders.

In Sweepstakes, “A” means low power (over 5 W, up to 100 W), “Q” is 5 W or less and “B” is over 100 W. The check is the last two digits of the year you or your station were first licensed. In NAQP, use your own first name, and send the same one all contest.

More good habits: common operating mistakes and your first month on the air.

Where to go next