I’ve been contesting since 2010, when I discovered I could find many DX stations without pileups. That was running CW. 2013, I moved to RTTY contests, partly for the same reason. By 2014, I had moved most of my contesting to VHF. I had great fun, earned some awards, and even won a few categories along the way.

This guide to VHF contesting introduces the joys of contesting in general, examines the aspects particular to VHF contesting, guides your efforts at getting on the air, and provides plenty of references for further information.

What is Amateur Radio Contesting, a.k.a. RadioSport?

Amateur radio contesting, also known as RadioSport, truly is a sport. Operating for an entire contest requires considerable skill in making contacts, stamina, and endurance, which could take up to 48 hours. It also requires technical knowledge to assemble a station that can be competitive in the contests and categories of interest.

It’s also a fantastic way to measure your operating skills and station against others in your region and category to determine how you compete. That, in turn, can spur your efforts to improve your skills and your station. Of course, you can also find out how you rank in the contest. Plus, you may even be able to win.

While it might be nice to win a contest or category and compare your results to others, it can be just as helpful to compare your results from one year to the next or one contest to the next. Are you improving when measured against your past results? Then comes the fun part. What type of antenna or gear would help you improve? What practice do you need? And can you improve your physical condition so you can stay in the chair longer than in the last contest?

Of course, RadioSport doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing endeavor. You can participate on a casual basis as well. Try a contest weekend for a few hours on Saturday afternoon or any other time that fits your schedule. You can even time it for the type of DX you are seeking. Say late Friday or Saturday evening to pick up new countries on 80 meters.

In summary, RadioSport offers:

• More stations are on the air.
• Significantly increased activity levels.
• Working HF DXCC or WAS in one weekend.
• Competing in categories that match your station and operating preferences.
• Measuring operating improvement over time.
• Building your station against competitive benchmarks.

VHF Contesting Overview

Almost all that applies equally to VHF contesting, except working DXCC or WAS in one weekend. A few critical differences also make for a great deal of fun and interest.

I was introduced to VHF contesting at the Dayton Hamvention’s Contest University. Amidst all the great sessions was one on VHF Contesting conducted by Joel Harrison, W5ZN. Here’s how he summarized it.

Magic Bands with Super Results from Average Stations

— Joel Harrison, W5ZN

Let’s start with antennas. The big guns on HF contests are running towers, large triband, or even monoband Yagis. On VHF, which is 50 MHz and above, you can get a great deal of gain and directivity into a minimal space. Nearby, you can see me holding a 3-element 6-meter Yagi for size comparison. The 2-meter and up antennas are even smaller with more gain.

That also means they are lightweight and easily supported on a push-up mast in your backyard. See the nearby photo of a pushup mast in my backyard with a five-element 6-meter Yagi and 8-element 2-meter Quad.

I don’t use a rotator but point the antennas using the Armstrong method. But you’ll find that the antennas are so lightweight that a simple, relatively low-cost rotator will work fine.

Power levels are another point of comparison. VHF contests have low power categories ranging from 10 watts to 100 watts and 200 watts and above. Low power coupled with high-gain antennas can be a very effective VHF station.

There are large stations on the air with high power, lots of high-gain antennas, and operations around the clock. They add extra fun to the contest as you are sure to work them at some point, usually with all the different VHF bands you have at your station.

There’s also a much smaller group of competitors in VHF contests. For example, the CQ WW VHF Contest had 787 entries in 2023. The CQ WW DX SSB contest had 9,638 entries that same year. That generally means you have a far better chance of ranking higher in the results, even if you’re last in your category!

VHF Contest Listing

There are four major VHF contests each year and several VHF sprints.

The ARRL supports three VHF Contests:

• January VHF is the third or fourth full weekend in January. (849 entries in 2024).
• June VHF is the second full weekend in June. (1,615 entries in 2023).
• September VHF is the second full weekend in September. (708 entries in 2023).

You can see that June is the big contest. That’s because it’s the most likely to encounter Sporadic E openings, greatly extending the range of VHF stations on 6 meters, leading to a high activity level. The ARRL contests run from Saturday afternoon to Sunday evening for 33 hours.

The CQ WW VHF Contest happens on the third weekend of July. It, too, often has Sporadic E openings that generate a great deal of activity. The CQ contest also runs from Saturday afternoon but closes earlier on Sunday for 27 hours of activity.

The Central States VHF Society hosts a series of four-hour sprints in the Spring, and the Southeastern VHF Society hosts the same thing in the Fall. These sprints are band-specific, with separate days and times for 50 MHz, 144 MHz, 222 MHz, 432 MHz, and Microwave.

Other ARRL VHF and up contests include 222 MHz and up, EME, and 10 GHz. You can find a complete listing and details at https://contests.arrl.org

VHF Contest Entry Categories

Here’s where VHF contesting starts its significant departure from HF contesting. In VHF contesting, there are no CW-only or SSB-only contests. In general, the mode doesn’t matter. It’s all about getting QSOs in the log with 4-digit grid squares as the multipliers.

The ARRL contests have recently varied this by establishing an Analog-Only category that covers phone and CW. The alternative is the all-mode category that includes digital contacts.

ARRL Contest Entry Categories

Here are the ARRL contest entry categories.

Single Operator — Both Analog-Only and All-Mode subcategories.

• Low Power (200 w at 50 and 144 MHz/100 w at 222 and 432/50 w 902 and above.)
• High Power (exceeds low power)
• Portable (10 watts)
• 3-Band (50-144-432 – 100w at 50 and 144 MHz/50 w at 432 MHz)
• FM Only (100 watts, 50 MHz to 1.2 GHz)

Multi-Operator — no power limitations.

• Limited (4 bands maximum, all band operation allowed, only submit 4 band logs)
• Unlimited

Rovers — This category is somewhat unique to VHF contesting, although they also operate in QSO parties. They make for fun contesting, following the rover from one grid to the next, and adding QSOs and multipliers.

• Classic Rover (two operators only, no power or band restrictions)
• Limited Rover (low 4 bands — 200/100 watts as per single operator rules)
• Unlimited Rover (all bands, high power, multiple operators)

There are quite a few other rules regarding rover operations. For example, the rover must sign their callsign followed by /R for every QSO. And they must move between at least two grids to qualify as rovers. In addition, once they move to a new grid, they get to work the same stations again for QSO credit. They are not considered duplicates.

Here’s a short gallery of my rover operations. You can learn more about my results at K5ND/R Operations. I’ve written quite a bit about my operations on this website, as well as with a series of articles in the National Contest Journal.

Club Contest Competition — There is also a club competition within the VHF and other contests. Here are the categories.

• ARRL Categories: Unlimited 51+ entries, Medium 50 or fewer, Local 10 or fewer.
• CQ Contest needs just 3 entries.

VHF Contest Exchange

The VHF contest QSO exchange is callsign and 4-digit Maidenhead grid locator. A Maidenhead grid locator is a geocode system that provides precise location data. VHF contesting uses 4-digit grids roughly 70 miles north-south by 100 miles east-west in the USA. The UHF and Microwave contests use more digits in their exchange for more precise locations and distance measures.

The grids are multipliers, much like DXCC or states serve in HF contests. So, if you work 50 stations and collect ten grids, the score is 500 points. You’ll collect grid multipliers for each band.

Note, too, that each band offers different QSO points. 50 and 144 MHz QSOs are worth 1 point each. 222 and 432 MHz QSOs are worth 2 points. 902 and 1296 MHz provide 3 points each. And there are 4 points for every QSO above 2.3 GHz.

In addition, rovers also get one multiplier for each grid activated.

ARRL Assistance Rules

You may be familiar with HF contests that often have separate categories for assisted and unassisted entries. There are also those contests where you can be disqualified if you use assistance. For the ARRL VHF contests, the assistance level doesn’t matter.

They allow chat rooms, social media, texting, phone calls, APRS reporting, and even self-spotting on DX Clusters, including DX Maps.

It’s primarily offered to help start a QSO. The nature of the VHF bands and highly directional antennas means you need to know where the other station is to point at them. Coordinating this requires using various chat rooms like PingJockey, VHF-Chat Slack, ON4KST, etc.

However, note that despite this open sharing of information, you cannot provide information once the QSO has started or request repeats.

CQ WW VHF Contest Categories

The CQ WW VHF Contest has quite a few differences from the ARRL VHF contests. For starters, it is only on 6 and 2 meters. The assistance rules are quite different as well.

Entry Categories

• Single Op – All Band
• Single Op – Single Band
• Single Op – All Band QRP, 10 watts
• Hilltopper – QRP, 10 watts, and 6 hours only
• Rover
• Multi Operator

There are no power categories other than QRP, which means you can operate at any power level up to the legal limit. The exchange is a 4-digit grid. QSO points are 1 for 6 meters and 2 for 2 meters.

There is no rover grid activation multiplier. However, the grids worked from each activated grid go in the total multipliers, which makes a substantial difference to a rover’s score.

CQ WW VHF Contest Assistance Rules

• No self-spotting.
• EME and Meteor Scatter can spot frequency and sequence only.
• Rovers can use APRS.
• No telephone or text.

You can see that the CQ WW VHF contest is quite a bit different and has its own ways of having fun through the weekend.

VHF Contest Participation Levels

I mentioned that activity levels are higher during contests. Here’s a chart showing the growth in activity levels for the ARRL June VHF contest over the years.

Here are two maps showing the grids activated by fixed stations and rovers during the 2023 June VHF contest.

These charts clearly demonstrate the impact of a VHF contest with increased stations on the air and some from grids that aren’t typically available. Now if only the propagation is there to help us make QSOs.

Average VHF Stations

So what about Joel, W5ZN’s insight into using average stations for super results? Here’s what he suggests for each of the major VHF bands.

• HF – 6-meter rig at 100 watts, 3-element Yagi at 30 feet.
• 2 meters greater than 50 watts, Yagi at 50 feet is outstanding.
• 222 and 432 greater than 50 watts, Yagi at 50 feet, and more elements.
• Preamps are helpful at 6 and 2 meters and essential for higher bands.

You can see that a minimum amount of power can get you on the bands. The antennas are also crucial and should be fed via low-line loss coax.

VHF Propagation

Line-of-sight should help you pick up those stations in your immediate area or city. Here are the other types of propagation to expect.

• Sporadic E – primarily on 6 meters with spectacular results; pray for Es during the contest.
• Tropospheric Ducting – can bring great results at 2 meters and above; watch for this on Sunday mornings.
• Meteor Scatter – can significantly extend your range for 6 and 2 meters. Early morning is best.
• Moon Bounce is not for average stations but is used during the contest.

Sporadic E and Tropospheric ducting are the main types of propagation to expect.

VHF Contest Strategy

Here’s the cardinal rule for any contesting:

Pick the Category that Fits You and Your Station

My first purpose is to have fun. The second is to generate a reasonable score and then compare from one contest to another.

Along my contesting journey, I started on HF, working as many new DXCC entities as possible. In those days, nearly every DXCC was new. Then, I started looking at my results and considering how to rank higher. So, I started considering QRP entries and single-band entries. That process led me to VHF contesting and the various categories and operating styles.

Six meters and two meters are the standard bands to operate. Since the QSO points increase with higher bands, the next step is to add more bands to your station. Often, you can work a station on 2 meters and then ask them to move to higher and lower bands for more QSOs and points. That approach has become more challenging when using WSJT-X, but it still works.

Another strategy is to have more modes available. WSJT-X is a must-have mode unless you choose an analog-only entry category. Mostly that involves FT8, FT4, and MSK144. SSB and CW are the modes for running stations when the bands are open.

Butt-in-chair is critical in all contesting. You’re not working QSOs and multipliers if you’re not in front of your station. Even so, nights on VHF contests are generally dead.

VHF Contest Operating Practices

Two meters is the go-to meeting place. If 6 meters is open, work as many stations as possible there. As noted above, the next practice is to move stations to other bands for more points per QSO.

Since we’re using high-gain antennas at VHF and UHF, it’s vital to point your antenna at the other station accurately. Depending on the distance, being off a few degrees can make the difference between working or not working the station.

Sunday morning tropospheric and meteor scatter can add multipliers. This may be the only chance to work distant stations when six-meter Es aren’t helping. That’s particularly true during the January and September contests.

One thing I enjoy is monitoring https://contestonlinescore.com. This website displays the real-time scores of the contest stations that submit their log data. It gives you an idea of where you stand, helps grab your attention, and encourages you to stay in the chair.

Here’s a case in point from the January 2024 VHF contest. It shows my score for each contest hour compared to the score from one of my nearest competitors. Only at the last hour of the contest does my score exceed the competitors. This was primarily because my competitor probably had a conflict that evening and had to leave the station. But it shows what’s possible.

I also recommend that you look at your log check reports. You can find them for the ARRL contests at https://contests.arrl.org/logcheckreports.php. These reports can help you identify issues like incorrect callsigns, exchanges, etc. However, be careful not to take these reports too seriously. They are meant to identify significant problems, but the score adjustments seldom affect the contest standings.

One case in point: for the June 2023 VHF contest, I got a little riled when I found three stations considered not-in-log, one station with the incorrect call, and two stations receiving not-in-log from me. All those stations were confirmed in the Logbook of the World. So, they happened and were logged correctly. Of course, losing those points didn’t affect my ranking in the contest results. So, I guess they didn’t matter in the overall scheme. A reference that can provide more insight is by Doug Grant, K1DG, from the National Contest Journal at http://ncjweb.com/features/julaug19feat.pdf

Get on the Air and Have Fun in VHF Contests

VHF contesting can be a great deal of fun. It brings lots of activity to the bands. That alone makes it an excellent time to be on the air to add grids to your VUCC totals. You can also find fun categories that fit your station and operating interests. That, in turn, can provide insight into what you want to improve for the next contest.

So get on the air and have fun.

Links to More Information

I’ve listed links below for further information that may prove helpful.

VHF Contests

• ARRL January VHF Contest
• ARRL June VHF Contest
• CQ WW VHF Contest July
• ARRL 222 MHz and Up Distance Contest August
• ARRL September VHF Contest

VHF Contesting Magazines

• ARRL QST Magazine. Monthly VHF Column, contesting coverage, how-to articles. The archives of back issues can also be very helpful.
• ARRL National Contest Journal. Great coverage of all contesting with many articles with a VHF focus.
• CQ Magazine. Coverage of VHF topics, including contest results and a monthly column.

VHF Contesting Websites

• Central States VHF Society. Awards, programs, sprints, conferences, lots of stuff of interest.
• Society of Midwestern Contesters — FAQ, see the VHF/UHF contesting information.
• Contest University. This link is to the files section with all past presentations, including many for VHF contesting.
• DX Maps. It’s an excellent site for monitoring openings on VHF bands.
• Ping Jockey. The chat system is used to coordinate meteor scatter contacts.
• PSK Reporter. Monitor how well your signal is getting out, by VHF band.
• Contest Online Scoreboard. A fascinating source of information during and after contests.
• ON4KST online chat. Excellent at coordinating VHF contacts.
• VHF/UHF Beacons. Listing of beacons published by WZ1V.
• ARRL VUCC Award. The rules and application for the VHF-UHF Century Club Award.

VHF Contesting Online Groups

I encourage you to connect with some Facebook Groups, including the VHF/UHF Weak Signal Amateur Radio group. The groups.io email lists are helpful, but they are primarily about rigs, logging software, WJST-X, and more. Connect with your areas of interest. There is also an email list for VHF Contesting. Many local clubs can also be very supportive and helpful.

K5ND Presentation Slide Decks

• VHF Contesting presentation for QSO Today Ham Expo. Slide deck from the March 2021 presentation. K5ND VHF Contesting Presentation Video on YouTube. Video presentation, including Q & A on Vimeo.
• VHF Contesting for Richardson Wireless Klub. Slide deck from February 2021 presentation.
• VHF Rover Virtual Tour. Slide deck from February 2021 presentation to North Texas Microwave Society.
• VHF Contesting for Front Range 6 Meter Group. Slide deck from May 2020. You can find the video at VHF Contesting by Jim K5ND.
• Six Meter Presentation @ ARRL Learning Network. Slide deck and link to a video from August 2020.

K5ND VHF Blog Articles

At the latest count, my blog had over 100 articles on contesting and VHF. Here are a few highlights that might prove interesting.

• National Contest Journal — K5ND Articles. My articles in 2020 issues plus my cover appearance.
• 222 MHz Transverter and Power Amplifier.
• DSE Antenna Tuning and Rig Expert AA-600 Analyzer.
• Fiberglass Push-Up Mast.
• Cheap Yagis for VHF and UHF.
• RSGB 2020 Online Convention VHF Videos. Great videos on six-meter sporadic E and radios for VHF contesting.
• Rover Updates — DC Power Systems and Power System and New Mast.
• Logbook of the World for Rovers.

Icom America Blog Articles

I’ve written several articles for Icom America. Here are links to a few that are appropriate for VHF Contesting.

• VHF Simplex Operation and Spectrum Scope Use (IC-9700)
• VHF Rover Contesting — Truly Moving QSOs
• Radio Contesting Journey — HF, VHF, and Roving
• The Magic Band

VHF Contesting Summary

That’s my attempt to provide some insight and a few resources to help you launch or continue your VHF Contesting journey. It’s not all-encompassing and, at best, reflects only my limited perspective and experience.

Nonetheless, it will be of value in your efforts. I look forward to working you in the contests.