Northeast Maryland Amateur Radio Club (NEMARC) and Contest Society (NEMARCS)

Northeast Maryland Amateur Radio Contest Society (NEMARCS)

One more Q!

Origin of the Northeast Maryland Amateur Radio Contest Society (NEMARCS)

Many of us in NEMARC love to contest as a club, operating from our individual stations and adding our scores together for a club total. We've spent many thrilling weekends operating individually from our homes and sharing the adventure together in our virtual clubhouse, contacting as many stations as we can for the best individual and club scores possible! We have a system to total and display our scores in real time, so we are constantly up to date in how we are doing individually and collectively, that spurs on great fun, support and interaction throughout the weekend!

Most contest sponsors, such as CQ Magazine, will accept club entries without any prerequisites, but ARRL will only accept club entries for ARRL affiliated clubs. Since ARRL has some great club contests that we really enjoy participating in too, we decided to create a sub group under our NEMARC umbrella, the Northeast Maryland Amateur Radio Contest Society (NEMARCS ), that ARRL would recognize as an affiliated club. Additionally, by affiliating with ARRL, our contest society was able to obtain the call sign NE3MD for use at any approved NEMARC or NEMARCS activity.

Aside from having fun, NEMARC has no officers, dues, structure or obligations of any kind, but for contest purposes, to qualify as an ARRL affiliated club, NEMARCS must be slightly more organized. In other words, instead of making everyone who wants to be part of NEMARC adhere to the organizational structure and membership requirements ARRL asked us to implement specifically for contest club affiliation, we created the contest society, NEMARCS, as as sub group under the NEMARC umbrella.

There are many interests within NEMARC: chasing DX, contesting, digital and EmComm to name just a few. NEMARC members can participate in any actives they like and members will likely connect with those sharing similar interests. If contesting isn't your thing, but you want to be part of NEMARC, that's great! We are thrilled to have you with us in NEMARC and you need read no further! If, on the other hand, radiosport sounds intriguing, please continue!

Northeast Maryland Amateur Radio Contest Society (NEMARCS) Structure and Membership Requirements

The officers ARRL has on file for NEMARCS are Steve Williams, W3JX, NEMARCS president and trustee of NE3MD, Dave Zuzin, N3HCN, vice president and Kimberly Davis, KA3SEQ, secretary/treasurer. The current members list ARRL has on file is here.

Membership in NEMARCS is free. The only requirement is that each member must make at least 100 contacts in at least one contest during each calendar year. For anyone who has an interest in contesting, this is a very modest requirement. Most contests have very high QSO rates, so the 100 contact goal can easily be met in two to four hours of operation. The club contest coordinator will maintain a NEMARCS active roster based on this requirement and submit roster updates to ARRL as required.

While regular participation is expected, a club member is allowed a 36 month grace period from his last active contest before being removed from the active NEMARCS roster that must be submitted to ARRL. Removal from the NEMARCS roster has no bearing on NEMARC membership whatsoever. Everyone remains in NEMARC, regardless of contest activity. Any former NEMARCS member can rejoin NEMARCS, simply by again fulfilling the 100 QSO requirement. The reason the contesting society has established this requirement is that the founders wanted to ensure NEMARCS maintains a focus on contesting as new members join. Don't worry, it's easy, there is lots of grace and we will help you!

Club Contesting – The Basics

Whether you just want to make a few contacts or you have serious competition in mind, there’s nothing like a contest to get you on the air! Radiosport offers a great opportunity to speedily connect with lots of fellow hams, enhance your operating skills, learn about propagation, demonstrate the ability of Amateur Radio, accumulate lots of DX entities, states or sections in a hurry and discover the strengths and weaknesses of your station!

That's more than enough incentive to enjoy the many fun radiosport events we can look forward to annually, but club contesting adds another great element – the team! When you operate contests with us from your home station, every point that your station earns is added to our cumulative score, so everyone is pulling together to reach a common goal. The total score comprises points from all our individual home stations.

Because the club score is a total, not an average, there’s no worry that anyone might somehow hold the club back by joining in. Even if you only make one contact, those points still help our club! Everyone is rooting, helping and encouraging each other to achieve their individual goals and the result is the club’s total score.

We like to do well, be we like to have fun even more, so there is never any pressure or expectations. Even if you only make a few QSOs to get your feet wet, we are thrilled to have you with us and appreciate every contact you make, even if only a handful!

If this sounds like fun, we would love to have you on board! Please send your questions, comments and membership requests to:

Club Geographical Boundaries

ARRL defines local clubs as having 10 or fewer log entries per contest, all within a 35 mile radius of a fixed center point (we use Bel Air, MD). We started out as a local club, but our continued growth has morphed us into the medium sized club category (11 - 50 entries, all within a 250 mile radius for ARRL and CQ contests).

By the way, we are REALLY happy to see all the new folks joining us! Welcome aboard!

The more the merrier, so we definitely want to continue to add as many new members as we can. That said, we aren't looking to become a HUGE mega club.

We like the local feel we have now and we want to maintain it, so we are keeping focus on Harford, Baltimore, Cecil, Carrroll and York counties for the core of our growth, but we welcome in anyone else who finds us by association (friends of friends, those that find us by the web site, etc.), within the larger, 250 mile circle.

So, in short, we are striving for the core of our growth in roughly this 35 mile circle:

But we will happily welcome in any friendly, positive hams who find us by association and want to join us within this 250 mile circle.

Thanks for your interest in NEMARCS!