Contest News – 29 March 2015

Please note that contest times are given as UTC, which is an hour behind local clock time in the UK now that British Summer Time came in at 1am on the 29th.

The second—and final—major American contest is the SSB leg of CQWW WPX running for 48 hours ending at 2359UTC tonight, the 29th. Everybody works everybody, exchanging a report and serial number. Expect the contesting bands to be heaving and some large serial numbers to be exchanged. The exchange is signal report and serial number.

Next weekend, on the 5th, the first RoPoCo contest takes place from 1900 to 2030UTC. Using SSB on the 3.5MHz band you send a signal report plus, for your first QSO, your own full postcode. In subsequent QSOs you send the postcode that you received in each of your previous QSOs. Should you receive a postcode that is obviously corrupted, which is not unusual, pass it on as received. This contest is all about logging accuracy and as long as you aren’t the person who introduces the error you won’t lose points. Bear in mind that some Continental postcodes also creep into the proceedings. This is a surprisingly challenging contest, with the same power limit for everyone—100 watts.

Also on 5 April the first 70MHz contest runs from 0900 to 1200UTC. Using all modes on the band the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator.

The first of this year’s SP DX Contests takes place for 24 hours over the weekend of 4-5th, that’s the Easter weekend, from 1500 to 1500UTC. The modes in this one are CW and SSB on the 1.8 to 28MHz bands. Only contacts with SP stations count for points. Send a signal report and expect to receive a signal report and single-letter Province code, with 16 to collect. There are lots of sections, mostly for single-op stations.

Category: GB2RS Contest News