Contesting is one part of amateur radio. The purpose of a ham radio contest is to work as many amateur radio stations as possible in a certain time frame.
Scoring depends on the specific contest rules. There are a lot of different contents going on during the year (actually each weekend) but there are only a few “big ones”. Those contests are the most fun because participation is much much bigger than in smaller contests. The more stations, the better 
I started contesting in October 2000 with the CQ WW DX SSB contest. As I was interested in chasing DXCC countries I figured out that this contest was an ideal method to chase countries as a lot of “semi-rare” entities are on the air. Since then interest in contest grew more and more and usually one big contest per year is a must.
So far I have been active several times at bigger contest stations:
| Year | Contest | Station | Country |
| 2002 | CQ WW DX SSB | OT2A | Belgium |
| 2003 | CQ WW DX SSB | HB0/HB9AON | Liechtenstein |
| 2004 | CQ WPX SSB | OT4A | Belgium |
| 2004 | CQ WW DX SSB | HB0/HB9AON | Liechtenstein |
| 2005 | CQ WW DX SSB | XE1CXC | Mexico |
| 2006 | CQ WPX SSB | XE1CXC | Mexico |
| 2006 | IARU | XE1CXC | Mexico |
| 2006 | CQ WW DX SSB | HB0/HB9AON | Liechtenstein |
| 2007 | CQ WPX SSB | XE1CXC | Mexico |
| 2008 | CQ WPX SSB | XE1CXC | Mexico |
| 2008 | CQ WW DX SSB | HB0/HB9AON | Liechtenstein |
Despite these major activities I participated part time in a lot of other (mostly smaller) contests. (ARRL DX, IARU, IOTA, WAE, WAG). Additionally I usually take part in a local contest which is called “Köln-Aachen-Contest”. This is a local contest but activity-level is quite big (given the “regional” character) and it gets bigger from year to year. Therefore more fun each time.
Check out the Ham Radio Trips section for pictures and some background information.