Guide to February 2026 Ham Radio Contests—Valentine’s Day Gifts & Fractured Poetry Edition

Greetings, lovers of amateur radio!

February’s OnAllBands contesting guide features a few of our favorite on-air competitions for the month along with something extra: amateur radio gift ideas for Valentine’s Day and a bit of holiday poetry in the vein of William Shakespeare, who famously wrote these words (or something like them) for Hamlet’s most famous melancholic soliloquy: “To beam or not to beam—that is the question…especially if you’re dealing with limited space or an HOA. Alas.”

This year, think outside the heart-shaped box of chocolates and consider amateur radio Valentine’s Day gifts for someone special in your life:

• Slip a DX Engineering Gift Card inside a Valentine’s Day card and you’ll bring a smile to someone who will love shopping from more than 30,000 amateur radio products at DXEngineering.com. Gift cards are available in denominations from $25 to $500.

• Icom’s original IC-7300 HF Plus 50 MHz Transceiver is still available at DX Engineering. Why not surprise someone with this beloved rig that makes a perfect gift for hams who are looking to expand their operating capabilities?

• For the POTA, SOTA, and IOTA fans in your life, you’ll find loads of gear for outdoor ops at DX Engineering, including the Spooltenna End-Fed Half-Wave Portable Wire Antenna. It features an innovative spool design for rapid deployment and teardown, sure to reel in the heart of your favorite ham. Also choose from portable telescopic masts, many more portable antennas, and HF Portable Operation Gear Packages, which include transceiver, antenna, and more.

• Show your love for the operators in your life and your preferred amateur radio provider with DX Engineering logo hats, mugs, and clothing—from T-shirts to hoodies.

If you’re looking for something catchy to write in the Valentine’s Day card to your significant other, here are a handful of suggestions courtesy of the team of poets at OnAllBands who have studied the great works of Robert Frost, John Keats, Emily Dickinson, Ogden Nash, and Weird Al to bring you these memorable sentiments:

• Roses are red, violets are blue, my best QSO was the one made with you.
• Your beautiful eyes set me afire, one look I’m aglow like some soldering wire.
• How do I love thee, I’ll give it a try, your CQs are sweeter than Raspberry Pi.
• Our love is as strong as a radial plate, but when the signal is weak, we’ll try FT8.
• Whether 1,000 watts or just QRP, regardless the power, you exhilarate me.
• Your velvety tones couldn’t be sweeter, you’d never kerchunk on the local repeater.
• The SWR may be lesser or greater, but whatever the band, you’re a smooth operator.
• We part with such sorrow, wearing DXE shirts, our time off the air sure mega-hurts.

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Here’s hoping you have smooth operations this February. The month includes RTTY action, 2026’s first State QSO Parties, PSK31 on Valentine’s Day, 10-meter and Topband challenges, and much more. Here are a few highlights:

• Mexico RTTY International Contest, Feb. 7, 1200Z to Feb. 8, 2359Z. The 28th edition of this Baudot RTTY-only contest encourages amateurs around the world to contact as many stations as possible on 3.5 to 28 MHz (WARC prohibited). The contest is sponsored by the Federaciòn Mexicana De Radioexperimentadores.
• F9AA Cup, CW, Feb. 7, 1200Z to Feb. 8, 1200Z. Find all the rules for this worldwide 80/40/20/15/10/2M CW-only contest here.
• European Union DX Contest, Feb. 7, 1200Z to Feb. 8, 1200Z. This is the sixth edition of this worldwide CW/SSB, 160-10M (WARC bands prohibited) contest.
• NAQCC CW Sprint, Feb. 11, 0130Z to 0330Z. With more than 10,000 members in 103 countries, the North American QRP CW Club hosts these CW sprints througho…