[CQ-Contest] Announcing the “The Real Contesters International DX Contest”.

[Mark]

The Real Contesters are pleased to announce a new worldwide CW and SSB DX
contest to be held on the nearest weekend to April 1 with many new
innovations which we are sure will not only excite the contesting community
but will bring a level of competition not seen before.

We have noticed much angst and anguish about the length of contests.  As
such and although the contest will go for forty eight hours, you can create
your own operating period category to the nearest minute and enter that.
 Yes we understand this could mean 2880 potential categories and very few
entrants in each, but we acknowledge you should not have to spend forty
eight hours in the chair to win anything and its not like many people
operate the full forty eight hours anyway.  Furthermore you will not have
to choose an operating period equal to the total time you operated but
instead you can cherry pick out of your log the periods you did best in.

Recognition is also well overdue for those who run more than 1500w in a
contest.   Therefore we have introduced several new power categories, 1.5KW
to 5KW, 5KW to 10KW and over 10KW. Yes we know that these power levels will
breach most national regulations but that does not appear to be a deterrent
to some so it is only fair these stations can compare themselves against
those running similar power, while leaving the old High Power category to
those running less than 1500W.

We understand contesting is all about EU and NA and everybody else is
simply there to make up the numbers.  Therefore we are introducing a
scoring regime that will reflect this.  QSOs between stations in EU and NA
and between stations in each of those continents will be worth five points
each and QSOs by them with other continents and by stations in those
continents themselves will be worth one point.  After all we recognise that
it is too much of a hassle for many EU and NA stations to turn their beams
or learn about propagation to other parts of the world so any contest worth
its salt should be measured on the prowess of EU and NA in working stations
on their own continent and each other.  It should go without saying but
only EU and NA stations will count as multipliers.

Speaking of NA we know that EU propagation is not uniform across North
America and it is simply not feasible for everyone to move to New England
as some seem to like to suggest.  Frankly however tough luck.  Contest
rules are not about fairness or giving a sucker an even break and contests
are far more interesting when only the chosen few can win.

In a similar vein we will also make sure Hawaii stays in Oceania even
though it has about as much in common geographically and propagation wise
with the entities in CQ zones 29,30 and 32, as they do with entities in
zone 15.

We also understand that band plans and band edges are solely there as a
guide only.  As such we are also going to double the points for QSOs where
one party is operating outside their applicable band plan or out of band.
 We are also going to award double points to people who transmit on
14300kHz and on the PSK, JT65, RTTY and SSTV frequencies as well as for
those who simply transmit over the top of other amateurs having non-contest
qsos.  Contesters are well known for such abilities and it is only fair
these abilities are recognised.  In any case as everybody knows
non-contesters should all be on the WARC bands during contest weekends
anyway.

We are also going to introduce Skype qsos.  With the proliferation of
electronic aids in identifying and working stations which is taking away
the need for anyone to improve their listening skills, we feel it is only a
small step to complete the QSO online.  Accordingly we will establish a
special group chat session using Skype where all stations can log in and
work each other there instead of having to go to the bother of working them
on the air.  We expect this to be extremely popular as all stations will be
presented on a plate with no pile ups to deal with and the issue of
propagation will be entirely removed from the equation.

Finally we want to recognise the station with the worst SSB and CW signals
as voted on by their peers.  So if you hear a particularly bad signal then
assuming you can actually make out the callsign, put it in your soapbox
comments with the band, date and time you heard it when submitting your
score.  We will publish a leaderboard of callsigns submitted and the SSB
and CW stations with the most votes will each receive a special plaque
commemorating their quality of signal.
We feel sure this contest will be welcomed with open arms by the contesting
community and we look forward to receiving many entries.