[CQ-Contest] The Stew Perry TopBand DX Challenge IX

[Lew Sayre]

     December is upon us with Holidays, a recently completed CQWW-CW contest and the upcoming Stew Perry TopBand DX Challenge- brought to you by The Boring Amateur Radio Club. We have invited various propagation deities to allow us to have the best contest yet. The Boring Amateur Radio Club encourages you to participate in the ARRL 160M contest this weekend. It is a fine contest and will probably whet your appetite for more action on the 160M Band which can be satisfied by operating The Stew Perry TopBand DX Challenge for 14 hours out of the possible 24 from 1500Z Dec. 18 to 1500Z Dec. 19 time period.
     This contest is unlike others: The QSO points depend on the distance between the two stations, final score utilizes factors relating to the power you're running and also the power of the station you worked, stations compete from all around the world, this as a CW only contest, grid squares are used as part of the exchange and the participants determine what honors are important by sponsoring certain categories memorialized by plaques.

       http://web.jzap.com/k7rat/stew.html<http://web.jzap.com/k7rat/stew.html>

     The above web page will answer your questions in more detail and will give you sense of what this grand TopBand contest is all about.
     Already TopBand stalwarts have been sending in their sponsorship for plaques to be awarded as the result of this 9th running of The Stew Perry TopBand DX Challenge. Listed below are the Plaque donors and the categories they feel are important, so far.
Donor                                             Category
KL7RA                   Top QSO Total
WA2DFI                 Top Score Single Op VE
W7EW                    Best DX distance
K7RAT                    Top Score Multi-Op World
VK6VZ                    The VK5AX Small Backyard Memorial- Top Score wid 
                 antenna in space < 20mx10m or 66ft x 33ft.  Winner gets coveted
                 Royal Flying Doctors Service of Australia hat

     There are  contesters out there right now deciding what category to sponsor.  Decide what is important to you and sponsor it!  The Boring Amateur Radio Club feels strongly that the participants shall decide. Challenge a buddy across town or across an ocean for a category that describes you and sponsor the plaque. The cost is a paltry $50.00. The donor's call is also forever inscribed on the plaque which will hang in a place of honor in the winner's abode.  To set aside a particular category please email me at  leww at msn.com<mailto:leww at msn.com> with your idea and then send the funds to me via CBA. First E-mailed-first gets it.
     The plaques for the running of the 2003 edition of this fine test went into the first class mail today, so they should be arriving soon. (Don't worry Mau!)
     So get out there and spiff up those Beverages and verticals and loops and hunks of other conductive material and get ready for The Stew.
     Updates of the sponsor list will be published weekly or so..which means only a couple or three more times since the Stew Perry TopBand DX Challenge will be a happening thing Dec. 18 - 19.
     73 and I remain,
     Lew   W7EW/W7AT
     Plaquemeister-Boring Amateur Radio Club