Preparing for a major contest, such as the CQ WPX Contest, requires several weeks of communication among team members. Most teams rely on email, but this method is labor-intensive and, when there are a large number of messages, can become difficult to manage.
At OM0A, we set up a private discussion forum based on the open-source PHPBB platform for this purpose: http://www.phpbb.com/. There were seven main forums: WPX, People, Equipment List, What to Do, New, Condx, and Miscellaneous. Team members created topics within these forums as needed. In total, there were over 250 posts; nevertheless, the system remained well-organized and proved very effective.
Installing PHPBB is simple; even a beginner programmer can handle it. It requires a server with PHP support and a single MySQL database. Slovak and Czech language support are also available. Forum settings are managed through the administration interface.