To all FT4 operators worldwide:
The Northern California Contest Club is again pleased to sponsorour weekly FT4
Sprint, aka FT4 NS (NCCC Sprint). The Contest Manager, Dennis Egan W1UE, is
inItaly where he will be a contestant in this weekend’s big WRTC event, so he
askedme to make the FT4 Sprint announcement this week.
This contest is held every Friday UTC between 0100Z and 0130Z. That's Thursday
evening in North America.
Please read the rules carefully. They are posted at the following location:
https://www.ncccsprint.com/ft4ns.html
NOTE THE SPECIAL RULE FOR THIS CONTEST:
One thing that makes this contest unique is the eliminationof excessive
handshaking (e.g., R, RRR, RR 73, etc.) at the end of a contact. A valid
contact can be made after two ops exchangetheir callsigns, exchange their grid
squares, and send a single “R”. That’s it. All that can be done in just two
transmissions.
This unique rule has been encoded into software by ourfriend Uwe DG2YCB in a
special version of WSJT-X Improved. To get this special FT4 Sprint software,
goto:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/wsjt-x-improved/files/WSJT-X_v2.7.0/
and download the file that is labeled “FT4 NS (NCCC Sprints)”dated June 19,
2023. 33 of us havedownloaded this software so far. Onereally neat thing
about this software is that if you right-click on the “H”button in the lower
left of the main WSJT-X screen, you will toggle between thespecial FT4 Sprint
exchanges (comprising grid squares and the elimination of excessiveR’ing that I
described above) and the standard FT4 exchanges (comprising signalreport in dB
and lots of R’ing at the end of the QSO). This toggling feature is helpful for
workingpeople who aren’t in the contest, but whom we hope to lure into the
contest in futureweeks.
FREQUENCIES. PLEASE READ CAREFULLY:
Many of you have expressed your thoughts as to whatfrequencies should be used
for this contest. Many of you have very strong opinions on this. The Contest
Committee has considered all ofyour comments very carefully, and we are well
aware of the issues. Last week, we tried an experiment in which weasked people
to use a special set of FT4 Sprint frequencies separate and apartfrom the
standard FT4 frequencies. Someops didn’t read W1UE’s announcement on this
carefully, and, for other reasonsas well, the result was that last week some
ops used the standard frequencies,some ops used the new frequencies, and some
ops used both sets offrequencies. For this week, your ContestCommittee is
asking you to:
USE THE STANDARD FT4 FREQUENCIES, BUT ON 40 METERS CHECKOUT 7.080 BECAUSE THE
STANDARD FT4 FREQUENCY IS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CW PORTIONOF THE BAND
The standard FT4 frequencies are listed in the official rules,for which I have
given you the link above.
The posted rules list “any” as the frequency(ies) for 160 meters,but for those
of you who want to give 160 a whirl, try 1.836.
Good luck to all, and I hope to work you all this Thursday evening on multiple
bands.
73, Ed Radlo AJ6V
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