[CQ-Contest] Practice RAC Canada Day, June 24

[Ken Keeler]

NCCC invites all contesters, especially north Americans and Canadians to 
participate in our weekly practice contest on Thursday night from 0340-04Z 
(Friday).  This week, on June 24 local times,  we feature the RAC Canada 
Day Contest, the real event happening on June 30 for North Americans (0000Z 
to 2359Z on July 1, 2004).

Objectives:
1.  To provide a chance to get your logging software and station switching 
set up & debugged well ahead of the real contest.
   (How many of you have been seriously burnt by not doing this necessary 
contesting step?)
2.  Familiarize yourself with the contest routine - it's unusual with the 
two mode, all-band structure.
3.  Contesting and CW practice for those who can't get enough on the 
weekend events!

The RAC contests (Canada Day in July and Canadian Winter contest in 
December) have long been favorite contests for me (N6RO) and a few other 
NCCCrs.  Why?  It's an all band (160-2M), CW & SSB (work the same station 
on both modes on each band), which dictates that you be very AGILE (Using 
two 1000MPs, you can actually attempt SO4R!).  It's a 24 hour contest, but 
little activity during the typical North American night, so a full effort 
is usually about 18 hours.  You can work EVERYBODY, but Canadians count 
five times as much as Ws and DX, and RAC stations count TEN times as many 
QSO points, so you should emphasize looking for/soliciting 
Canadians.  Multipliers (Canadian) count on each band-mode, so there's 
another challenging aspect.  There are HP, LP and QRP categories, and it's 
a friendly, somewhat laid-back event.  Full rules and information, like 
suggested frequencies can be found 
at:  http://www.rac.ca/opsinfo/infocont.htm.  From that page you can 
download a .pdf page with complete rules.

To get an idea of what scores are like in the real Canada Day, check the 
3830 Archives for  July, 2003: 
http://lists.contesting.com/_3830/2003-07/index.html

For the practice contest we'll use regular RAC contest rules, including 
suggested frequencies.  Note that most 80m SSB is below 3800.  I suggest we 
center around 3775 in the practice event.  I doubt that 10 and 15m will be 
productive in our 20 minute practice, but summer condx suggest that 20m may 
be open.  We're sorry these practice contests are so late for the 
eastern/central time zones, but realize that in summer, NCCC territory 
sunset is about the start of the contest - 0340Z.  Most of our contacts 
will be on the low bands.

We hope that a few Canadians will jump into this practice, to illustrate 
the importance of QSOs with VEs to your score in the real contest.  Please 
join us on 3853 at 04Z for the NCCC Thursday night net; score collection 
for the practice contest,  and discussion about RAC and other contesting 
issues.

Have fun,

N6RO, N6ZFO, N6DE