Last weekend I participated in the ARRL DX Contest. This is a contest where stations in the USA try to work as many foreign stations as possible. I enter this annual contest almost every year as a casual operator, and not as a competitive station. My only goal is to try and improve on my previous scores.The 2012 contest score was the best ever, with 362 contacts and 186,792 points. That's almost double my score last year of 95,066 points!
Some of the more interesting countries I contacted include Madeira Island, Ascension Island, Senegal, Antarctica, Surinam, Aland Island, Svalbard, Palau, plus numerous countries in Europe, South America, Asia, Africa and the Pacific.
The contest lasts 48 hours, but I only actually operated for about 20 hours.
All the logging is done with a computer program called WinTest, which saves a whole lot of time, plus it prevents working "duplicate" contacts, which can lower your score.
