Contester's Rate Sheet for July 3, 2002
*********************** Contester's Rate Sheet 3 July 2002 *********************** Edited by Ward Silver, N0AX SUMMARY o WRTC2002 - July 13th - new CTY files available from AD1C o New contesting software available o EU Sprint, All Asia, and Ohio QSO Party results available o 2001 160 Meter and 2002 VHF Sweepstakes available on-line at ARRL Web site BULLETINS o Don't miss out on the WRTC2002 fun during the IARU HF Championship. There are special awards for working the WRTC2002 competitor stations using the OJ1-OJ8 prefixes - never before activated. All e-mail logs submitted to logs@wrtc2002.org within 6 hours after the contest ends will participate in a lottery with special WRTC2002 prizes. See http://www.wrtc2002.org for more information. BUSTED QSOS o A golden issue last time! ANNOUNCEMENT & NOTICES FOR 3 JULY TO 16 JULY 2002 Logs are due for the following contests: o July 6, 2002 RSGB Jubilee Contest - email to: hf.contests@rsgb.org.uk, paper logs to: RSGB HF Contests Committee, c/o SV Knowles, G3UFY, 77 Bensham Manor Road, Thornton Heath, Surrey CR7 7AF, UK o July 8, 2002 QRP TAC Sprint - paper logs only to: Eastern PA QRP Club, N3EPA, Attn: Ron Polityka, 1155 Robeson St., 2nd Floor, Reading, PA 19604-2151, USA o July 10, 2002 ARRL June VHF QSO Party- email to: JuneVHF@arrl.org, paper logs to: June VHF, ARRL, 225 Main St, Newington, CT 06111, USA o July 15, 2002 West Virginia QSO Party - email to: WA8WV@aol.com, paper logs to: Dale Ellis, WA8WV, 610 Hillsdale Drive, Charleston, WV 25302, USA o No due date, but it's been a month...Kid's Day Contest - email to: kids@contesting.com, paper logs to: Boring Amateur Radio Club, PO Box 1357, Boring, OR 97009, USA The following contests are scheduled: MI QRP July 4th CW Sprint - sponsored by the Michigan QRP Club from 2300Z Jul 4 to 0300Z Jul 5 160 through 6-meter bands, SOAB, entry classes A (<250 mW), B (<1 W), C (<5 W), D (>5W). Exchange RST, SPC, and MI-QRP number or power output. QSO Points: MI-QRP members are 5 pts, non-member W/VE are 2 pts, and DX 4 pts. Score is QSO points X SPC (count each once per band, US/VE do not count as entities). If homebrew RX or TX, multiply by 1.25. If both RX and TX are homebrew, multiply by 1.5. For information - http://www.qsl.net/miqrpclub. Logs must be sent to L. T. Switzer, N8CQA; 427 Jeffrey Ave.; Royal Oak, MI 48073-2521 or n8cqa@att.net. Venezuelan Ind. Day Contest -- SSB - sponsored by the Radio Club Venezolano from 0000Z Jul 6 to 2400Z Jul 7. Frequencies; 160-10 meters. Categories: SOAB, SOSB, MS, MM. Exchange: RS(T) plus serial number. Work any station -- not just YV. QSO Points: Own country -- 1 pt, different country, same continent -- 3 pts, different cont. -- 5 pts. Score: QSO Points x YV call areas + DXCC entities counted once per band. For more information - http://www.radioclubvenezolano.org. Logs due 31 July (15 Sep for CW) to haroldojr@cantv.net or Radio Club Venezolano, Concurso, Independencia de Venezuela, PO Box 2285, Caracas 1010-A, Venezuela. Kentucky QSO Party - CW/SSB/Digital - sponsored by the Bullitt Amateur Radio Society from 1600Z Jul 6 to 0400Z Jul 7. Frequencies: SSB 3.900, 7.200, 14.300, 21.400, 28.400 MHz; CW 3.550, 7.050, 14.050, 21.050, 28.050 MHz (Digital QSO's count as CW). Categories: SSB, CW, Mixed-Mode, or Rover, use of packet spotting encouraged. Rovers identify as "Rover" or "/R" and may be worked once per county. QSO Points: SSB -- 1 pt., CW/Digital -- 2 pts, Rovers -- 2 pts both modes. Score: KY stations - QSO Points x SPC + KY4KY and W4KBR (count VE provinces, KL7/KH6 count as states), non-KY stations -- QSO Points x KY counties plus KY4KY and W4KBR, multipliers count only once. For more information - http://www.qsl.net/ky4ky/kyqsopartyrules.html. Logs due 14 days after the contest to KC4WQ@mis.net or KY QSO Party, c/o KC4WQ, 1229 Zoneton Rd., Shepherdsville, KY 40165. IARU HF World Championship, CW/SSB, sponsored by the IARU from 1200Z Jul 13 to 1200Z Jul 14. Frequencies: 160 - 10 meters, work stations on each mode. Categories: SO (Phone, CW, Mixed Mode), MS (with 10 minute rule). Exchange: RS(T) and ITU Zone, HQ stations will send a society abbreviation, such as "ARRL". (See http://www.arrl.org/contests for a list of prefixes and zones. A good ITU zone map is available at http://www.iaru.org/ituzonesc.gif.) QSO Points: own zone and HQ stations - 1 pt, same zone, different continent - 1 pt, different zone, same continent - 3 pts, different zone and continent - 5 pts. Score: QSO points x ITU zones + HQ stations counted once per band. For more information - http://www.arrl.org/contests. Logs due Aug 13 to IARUHF@iaru.org (Cabrillo format only) or IARU HF Championship, IARU International Secretariat, Box 310905, Newington, CT 06111-0905, USA. FISTS Summer Sprint, CW, 1700Z to 2100Z Jul 13. Frequencies: 80 - 10 meters, work US/VE stations, once per band. Categories -- SOAB-QRP (<5W), SOAB-QRO and Club. Exchange name, RST, state/province/DXCC country; members send FISTS number, nonmembers send power output. QSO Points: FISTS members -- 5 pts, nonmembers - 2 pts. Score is QSO points × SPC (count each only once). For more information - http://www.FISTS.org. Logs due 30 days after the contest to W8PIG@yahoo.com or Dan Shepherd, N8IE, 1900 Pittsfield St., Kettering, Oh 45420. QRP ARCI Summer Homebrew Sprint -- CW - 2000Z to 2400Z Jul 14 SO-CW, SO-SSB, SO Mixed-Mode categories; no time limit. Exchange RST, SPC and Pwr or QRP ARCI number - work stations once per mode. QSO Points: member stations 5 points, non-members/different continent 4 points; non-members/same continent 2 points. Score is QSO points X total SPC X Power Mult (<250mW x 15, 250mW-1W x 10, 1-5W x7, >5W x 1). Add the following bonus points for each band on which homebrew gear is used; 2000 pts for homebrew transmitter, 3000 pts for homebrew receiver, 5000 pts for homebrew transceiver. For more information - http://personal.palouse.net/rfoltz/arci/arcitst.htm. Logs due within 30 days after the contest to rfoltz@turbonet.com or Randy Foltz, K7TQ; ATTN: Top Band Sprint; 809 Leith St; Moscow, ID 83843. NEWS & PRESS RELEASES There is finally some contesting software available for the Linux operating system. There are actually two programs in development, one emulating CT (CX) and another which emulates TR-Log (TLF). Several of the major contests are already supported and there are provisions for generic contests, DX-peditions and logging of non-contest operations as well. TLF outputs Cabrillo files, which are required for many contest submissions. TLF can be found at http://sharon.esrac.ele.tue.nl/~pa0rct/TLF-0.2.html and CX is at http://cx.dk8lv.net/. There is also a mini-version of Linux on a floppy including TLF whichwill run on DOS computers in RAM. This can be found at http://debianham.sunsite.dk. (Thanks, Bob N7XY) Version 1_2_0 of N1MU's VHF/UHF/Microwave contest logging software RoverLog (It's not just for Rovers!) This version adds voice and CW keying as well as many other performance enhancements and bug fixes to the previous version. You can find out more about RoverLog and download it for free at http://www.2ub.org/roverlog/. (Thanks, Tom N1MU) If you know of a young contester that would like to get in touch with other young contesters around the world, point them at http://wwyc.webbg.com/index.php. The list has some impressive calls on it and the club totals more than 140 at present time. (Thanks, Thomas OZ1AA) In case you were wondering about whether such things are checked, checking of violations of the six-band change rules for MS and M2 in both modes of the DX Contest were reviewed and follow-up emails processed to about three dozen competitors by the ARRL Contest Desk. Also, The Online results for the 2001 ARRL 160 Meter Contest and the 2002 ARRL January VHF Sweepstakes have been opened at: http://www.arrl.org/contest/results. "Many thanks to Will Roberts, AA4NC, for his excellent work on the 160 Meter results article and to Mark Hoffman K2AXX and Jeff Ach, W2FU, for their work on the January VHF Sweepstakes articles. As we continue to explore options with the online results, your feedback is important. Remember that this feature is new and really a "work in progress"." (Thanks, N1ND) The new CTY files are available for the upcoming IARU HF Championship. All of the files can be found at: http://www.k1ea.com/cty. Individual files for NA and Writelog are included in the same ZIP file. They are also available as individual downloads from that web page. Please see README.TXT for installation instructions. (Thanks, Jim AD1C) The results for the Eu Sprint - Spring 2002 have been released and can be seen at <"http://loja.kkn.net/~i2uiy/>. Congratulations to Timo OH1NOA (operating as OH1F) and Dave G4BUO for their SSB and CW wins! (Thanks, Paolo I1UIY) JIDX 2001 Phone results and All time records are now available at http://je1cka.jzap.com/jidx/index.html. (Thanks, Tack JE1CKA) Results for the 2001 Ohio QSO Party are posted at http://www.mrrc.net/story/2002/6/16/234624/254. Note that the date of this year's Ohio QSO Party have been shifted to avoid the Labor Day weekend to Aug 24 and 25. (Thanks, Pat N8VW and Jim K8MR) TECHNICAL & TECHNIQUE If you're interested in getting some 40-meter directivity but can't put up more aluminum on your already-groaning tower, Kirk K4RO has modified his tribander with an Omega match per N4KG's design and reports not only fine results, but even better, higher contest scores on 40 meters. With Kirk's encouragement K4BEV set off to duplicate this antenna. Not only did Don figure out how to tune the beast, but he got it to work on 30 meters, as well. His description of the antenna, with photos, can be found at http://www.k4ro.net/tcg/k4bev_boom/k4bevboom.html. (Thanks, Don K4BEV) CONVERSATION As June ends, Field Day (both ARRL and IARU) is just receding in our contest rear-view mirrors. Even though Field Day is "not a contest", it sure gets the competitive juices flowing for many of us. Because it is not promoted as a competitive event, it draws a huge number of casual and newly-licensed operators to HF operations. Here's where the fun begins - quite a few long-time contesters can trace their involvement in contesting to a Field Day long ago when an older, more experienced hand turned to them and said, "Here, why don't you give it a try?" Nowadays, with that first sweaty-palmed experience remembered only for its glory and not for its lesser aspects, it is easy to forget that maybe we were a little raw during that first shift in The Chair. But our Field Day Elmer probably didn't say a whole lot about it, perhaps "suggesting" that maybe things might be a little smoother if we changed our style a tad here and there. If he or she had been too abrupt or stern, maybe our contesting career wouldn't have gotten off to the terrific start we recall today. The point of this recollection is to remind all of us experienced operators to extend a helping hand to those new, potential contesters. Sure, they aren't skilled in the arts of rate and they don't follow the usual snappy protocols we're accustomed to at 200 QSOs per hour. Mostly, though, they will respond if you make that casual suggestion and help them by teaching instead of reprimanding. I will admit that I, too, shook my head this year as I received the Field Day exchange in triplicate, with both calls at each end and four KN's, but I hope that I have helped the new operators on our end do a little better. There are some great opportunities coming up to reach out to those operators that took an interest in June. The IOTA Contest at the end of July and the North American QSO Parties in August have plenty of room for a low-key multiop, sharing the rig with a new operator. Why not invite that guy or gal that seemed to be hanging around the operating position more than the others? ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The Contester's Rate Sheet wishes to acknowledge information from the following sources: WA7BNM's Contest Calendar Web page - http://www.hornucopia.com/contestcal/ ARRL Contest page - http://www.arrl.org/contests/ SM3CER's Web site - http://www.sk3bg.se/contest/
