There were 2 contests held while we were in Estonia, one was a 2m “on-air” contest between licensed YOTA participants. This was organised by the Lithuanian team who also checked and cross-checked the logs at the end. The contest began at 8pm and finished at 8.30pm local time. It involved contesters finding a quite place to operate from, finding a frequency on 2m and calling CQ, which resulted in contestants running wildly throughout the hotel trying to find a suitable spot to transmit. The band got quite confusing with so many operators on at the same time, and even QSOs became confused with operators not sure who they were talking to. The winner of this contest was Ger EI4GXB with a confirmed 35 QSO’s within the 30 minute contest.
The other contest was an off-air contest for all participants, licensed or not, with 2 benches representing 40m and 80m bands. The aim was to make as many QSOs as possible whilst sitting on a particular bench. Once you made your contact and you had your serial number, you were allowed to race to the other bench to make a new QSO for that “band”. Whilst contestants raced from one bench to the other having QSOs, non-participating members were causing QRM (usually making large “la la la” sounds and also whistling). There was also a bit of “stamping” on the band with contesters pushing each other lightly to gain control of the “frequency”. It was hilarious and the funniest event by far of the week.
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