[CQ-Contest] Poisson d'Avril Contest

[Avril CD Party]

On Mar 16, 2006, at 1:25 PM, Doug Grant wrote:

> Several people have posted references to the Poisson d'Avril Contest
...
> I can advise that the Official Contest Period, in keeping with the
> growing popularity of shorter contests, will be 2300-2359Z on April 1
> (that is Saturday evening of April 1 in the U.S.)

which, perhaps unfortunately, opens up the possibility of other
non-overlapping April 1 contests.


              AVRIL CD PARTY - CONTEST ANNOUNCEMENT

The Avril CD Party is similar to the open April CD Party that was
sponsored by the ARRL up until roughly 30 years ago.  The information
here includes any differences from the April CD Party rules.  Otherwise
you'll need to follow all rules that were explicitly included within the
announcement of the last ARRL April CD Party, and the "General Rules
for All ARRL Contests."  (Although the NAQP is usually considered a
successor to the CD Party, you cannot rely on the NAQP rules.)

Note that we haven't specified the year of the last ARRL April CD
Party, or where to find the rules.  As of 18 March 2006 it seems that
the rules are not on the Internet in any easily found location (if at
all).  However, you do have a complete collection of QST sitting on the
shelves in your shack.  Right?


The Avril CD Party begins on 1 April 2006.  It ends on 1 April 2006 at
2230Z.

[We'll stop for a moment here.  You may be thinking "What TIME does it
begin?"  We told you that already.  It begins at the same time of day as
the last ARRL April CD Party.]

At the end of the contest, use this method to report your score:

  A. Take your fingers away from the keyboard.

  B. Tune your radio to 3830 kHz.  (You may also want to "tune up" by
     transmitting a carrier on 3830 for a minute or so.  It was
     traditional to do so.)

  C. Give your callsign, and number of contacts and multipliers.

  D. Don't stay past 2300Z - you'd cut into your Pd'A operating time.

  E. You must not otherwise discuss the Avril CD Party on April 1,
     or prepare an Avril CD Party log submission, until the end of
     Pd'A.  The Avril CD Party insists on non-interference with the
     "normal" functioning and announced operating period of Pd'A.

  F. You can later post your log through standard online methods,
     or e-mail your log to the contest sponsor (although it's
     unlikely that this would accomplish much).

You may make both CW and SSB contacts for contest credit at any time
during the contest period.  You may contact a station twice on one
band, if one contact is CW and the other SSB.  Don't operate CW in the
phone band - it's unseemly.

The Avril CD Party is a supporter of the ARRL "Hello" campaign (see
http://www.arrl.org for details).  Accordingly, the first component of
the exchange is the word "Hello."  The remainder of the exchange is
taken from the ARRL CD Party.


Special Rules

1. E-Commerce Rule

To bring the CD Party into the modern era, we've introduced a rule for
making payments over the Internet.  As you'll recall, the open April CD
Party only allowed contacts with ARRL members.  If a non-member called
in, it was basically a waste of time.  But no more!  Simply go to
http://www.arrl.org/join.html and use the online membership form to
purchase a gift ARRL membership for the operator with your VISA,
MasterCard, Amex, or Discover/Novus card.  (Your credit-card company
will bill you $39.)  You will be able to log the station as MBR as soon
as you click on "Submit Application."  The Avril CD Party sponsor
encourages developers of logging software to handle this
automatically.  For example, if NON is entered in the exchange field,
connect to www.arrl.org, submit the required credit-card information,
and upon a successful transaction change NON to MBR.


1a. E-Commerce Rule - ARRL Life Membership

Suppose a non-member calls in and you'd like to put LM in your log.
YOU'RE NUTS, DUDE.


2. Bonus Multipliers

For every ten gift ARRL memberships, you will garner one bonus contact
that counts as a new multiplier.  Most logging software requires a
callsign for each contact.  Therefore, for compatibility purposes,
simply log the contact as K1MMH (Mary M. Hobart, ARRL Chief
Development Officer).  For example, you might create the log entry
"QSO: 14250 PH 2006-04-01 2229 W1A Hello LM CT K1MMH/7 Hello CDO WY"
if you need Wyoming.


3. Special Rule to Give an Advantage to the East Coast

You may contact ARRL members in Europe, in addition to the U.S. and
Canada, if you have an Official Relay Station appointment.  Remember
that you can purchase gift ARRL memberships for European operators.
Contacts with Europe count zero points.  However, at the end of a
European contact, listen carefully for whether the operator asks "Can
you give me QTC?"  If so, you may earn the equivalent of 10 QSOs by
sending information about earlier contacts.  Send QTC information in
the format of time, call, and exchange, similar to the format of the
Worked All Europe contest.  For example, "2229 K1MMH/7 Hello CDO WY."


4. Passing Stations

In most cases, passing stations from one band to another is
inconsistent with the spirit and intent of this announcement, whatever
that means.  An exception is that you can pass any stations with
"Emergency" appointments (Official Emergency Station, Section
Emergency Coordinator, etc.) according to the following protocol.  Upon
competing the QSO, ask "if this had been an actual emergency, where
would I tune in my area for news and official information?"  The
Emergency station will reply with a frequency, e.g., 21305.  This means
that you should immediately QSY to 21305 and call the station there.


5. SWL Category

You may log any CD Party contacts, and you will score your log in the
same way as a non-SWL entrant, with two exceptions.  First, you may log
a station multiple times on the same band and mode, as long as your
log has unique pairs of callsigns.  The second exception involves
logging contacts with OO (Official Observer) stations.  If you log an
OO station violating an FCC rule (e.g., operating outside the band),
you garner 10 QSO points.  If you log a contact between one OO station
and another OO station in which they are both violating an FCC rule,
you garner 30 points.  If one OO reports the violation to the other OO
during the contact (e.g., "You're out of the band, old man!") you
garner 50 points.  If each OO reports the violation to the other during
the contact, you garner 100 points.  Any Official Observer who enters
the SWL Category should be sure to send OO notices via the ARRL's
OOOTW service.


6. Special Rule to Discourage Phone-Only Operation

You may have the opportunity to contact W1AW on multiple bands during
the contest period.  If you contact W1AW on SSB on three bands before
making any CW contact with W1AW, the W1AW operator may flag you as a
suspected "Phone-Only."  The W1AW operator will then send you a 5 WPM
code-practice transmission of the same length as the ordinary W1AW
weekday code practice.  You will need to copy this and attach it to
your contest entry.  Once you have completed code practice, you will be
free to make any other CD Party contacts, including additional W1AW
SSB contacts on other bands.


7. Campaigning

During the contest period, you may contact various operators who have
an elected position (e.g., Section Manager, Director, Vice Director).
Some of these persons may plan to run for re-election later in the
year.  Upon completing the contact, you may request a brief campaign
speech.  You should copy this and attach it to your contest entry.  For
the first 200 words, you garner one QSO point per 10 words.  Requesting
a longer speech is counterproductive - for each additional 100 words
or fraction thereof, you lose one QSO point.  An elected operator who
is competing in the CD Party does not earn any QSO points for making a
campaign speech, but may request campaign speeches from other elected
operators.  An elected operator can be disqualified for making a
long-winded campaign speech in an effort to reduce the score of
another operator and thereby gain a competitive advantage.


Q & A

Q. Suppose I'm a Local Government Liaison, which didn't exist at the
   time of ARRL CD Parties.  Do I send that in the exchange?
A. Yes.  As we said, a CD Party rule applies only if "explicitly
   included within the announcement of the last ARRL April CD Party."
   The announcement did not specify the complete set of valid
   appointments.  For information about current appointments, see
   http://www.arrl.org/FandES/field/org/

Q. I'm in the Western Washington section, which didn't exist at the
   time of ARRL CD Parties.  Do I send "WA"?
A. No, send "WWA."  Again, the list of ARRL sections was not
   "explicitly included within the announcement of the last ARRL April
   CD Party."

Q. Should I use the usual "CQ Contest" or "CQ TEST"?
A. No.  Use "CQ CD."

Q. What does "CD" stand for?
A. It doesn't stand for anything.  Is there still an ARRL Communications
   Department?  No?  We didn't think so.