The FCC has no requirement to identify the station you are speaking with, or to provide signal reports of stations being contacted. There is currently no longer a mandate to submit any logs. Interference to other amateurs is bad radio practice, and should be avoided where possible.

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There are online services called "spotting networks" where people can post which callsigns they have been able to hear / make contact with. In a contest it is nearly always against the rules (and always considered bad form) to "self spot" -- that is, to post your own callsign and frequency to the network.

Don't do it =]

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On the HF bands, for example, operating on the “WARC bands” is normally prohibited. Therefore, 30 meters is one band on which amateur radio contesting is generally excluded. (E2C03). The other “WARC bands” are 17 meters and 12 meters. They were named after the World Administrative Radio Conference, which in 1979 created a worldwide allocation of these bands for amateur use. Due to their relatively small bandwidth of 100 kHz or less, there is a sort of gentlemen's agreement that the WARC bands may not be used for general contesting.

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Mesh networks most often use commercial off-the-shelf WiFi equipment in the 2.4 GHz range, using amateur privileges to run higher power and gain than allowed under Part 15 operation.

[Suggested memory hint: mesh => wide net => spread apart => spread spectrum]

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QSL cards are sent to confirm radio contact. Knowing that, it makes sense that a QSL Manager is someone who handles the sending and receiving of confirmation cards.

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Because the VHF & UHF bands often require line of sight, during a contest most activity will concentrate on pulling in weaker signals at the edge of propagation or experimenting with weaker propagation modes like Sporadic-E and Tropo Ducting.

As a result, most of the activity will be found in the weak-signal portions of the bands, often just a few steps away from the calling frequencies. Additionally, US band plans do not define any portions specifically for contesting.

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The Cabrillo standard file format has revolutionized the world of amateur radio competitions. Log files can now be emailed in for adjudication from a variety of different logging software programs.

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The QSL bureau system was established to help members reduce the costs and hassles of international postage for QSL cards headed to foreign amateurs by packaging many cards headed to the same destination together in one shipment.

Because mailing a QSL card within the US is fairly cheap and easy, the bureau does not facilitate distribution of these cards.

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Normal Wi-Fi 2.4GHz / 5.8GHz wireless equipment can be used for mesh networking, as the ISM bands used for Wi-Fi overlap with amateur allocations.

Amateurs are permitted to use higher power levels (sometimes this can be done in software, or sometimes it requires an external amplifier) and gain antennas than the secondary ISM allocation.

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Amateur stations transmitting in foreign countries or regions may have different operating privileges than the receiving stations. In order for a contact to be made, the DX Station must transmit on his authorized frequencies and receive the frequencies permitted to the responding stations.

Also, separating the transmit and receive frequencies can cause less of a "pile up" of callers for the DX station.

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In pileups, there are a multitude of operators all transmitting at once in the hopes that the other station (in this case the DX station) will hear their call sign and answer. It's usually hard to pick out

Knowing this, process of elimination:

Sending full callsign and grid square would be annoying/confusing because grid squares are also comprised of letters and numbers which could be mistaken as a call sign.

Sending only the last two letters is brief, yes, but leaves a lot of room for confusion because there's a chance that there's someone else in the pileup that also has those two letters. Also, the DX station will just have to ask for clarification if they hear you, which is a waste of time in pileups and contests.

Sending the DX's call, "this is", then yours, etc. is way too much repetition. Also, it's pretty clear if you're in the pileup that you're trying to reach the DX station. No need to say their call repeatedly, too.

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As solar flux decreases and the maximum usable frequency (MUF) becomes lower long distance traffic on the higher frequency bands are the first to vanish but conditions may still allow traffic at lower frequencies.

Study tip: Sun gets lower in the sky at sunset....lower frequency.

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If you are utilizing remote control of a US station then the rules simply require that the station operate correctly. There is no requirement to add any sort of indicator. Remember that you are still the control operator, even if the control point is not physically located where the station is (i.e. the station is under remote control).

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