[CQ-Contest] NS RTTY this Thursday (Also some operating notes: Please Read)

[Ken K6MR]

Greetings Diddlers:

Great group last week with some big numbers.  Everyone is home anyway so might as well get on the radio.

We’ve had a number of new stations join us recently, so thought I’d review a few basic Sprint rules.  Sprints are different from ‘regular’ contests (that’s big news?) so here are some operating tips that will keep you within the spirit and letter of the rules.


  1.  QSY rule:  If you call CQ, you may only work one station and then have to move.  If you answer a CQ, you get that Q plus one more.  So no more than 2 Qs on a frequency before you have to move.
  2.  Exchange rule:  Both stations must send both callsigns in the exchange.  I know it takes time, but done correctly it actually speeds things up.   Here is the basic exchange format:
You call CQ:  your exchange should be  HISCALL  YOURCALL SN NAME STATE  .   The other station should answer  YOURCALL  SN  NAME STATE  HISCALL.  By putting HISCALL at the end, this tells everyone that he is taking the frequency.

  1.  If you were the CQing station (first to give the exchange), be sure to send something after getting the other station’s exchange to let him know you got it.  RRR, TU, R,  whatever.

If some of this doesn’t quite make sense, put a query out on the NS reflector and there will be lots of folks to answer your questions.  And don’t forget to check out the NCCC wevbsite (shown below) which has several great articles about how to operate a Sprint.

I don’t see any full time RTTY tests this weekend, so you’ll have to join us Thursday evening for your keyboarding fix.  Fire up the radios (and the software) and join us for 30 minutes of RTTY.

The details for our little get together this week:

Friday,  17 Apr 2020, 0145Z - 0215Z (Thursday, 16 Apr  in NA)
-- 1845 - 1915 PDT
-- 2145 - 2215 EDT
-- (others in-between those two)
-- 160: Around 1805  (Last two to five minutes seem to be popular…)
-- 80/40/20/15 +84 kHz up from the band edge   <--NOTE
-- Same band dupes ok after 1 intervening Q.
-- 1 kHz QSY rule, otherwise standard Sprint rules
-- Mults per band.
-- 100W power limit

Please visit http://www.ncccsprint.com/rttyns.html for complete rules and links to other info. If you find any problems with the web pages, please let me know so we can get them fixed.

If you would like to receive all the latest info about NS as well as a have a place for comments and questions, sign up for the NS mailing list:  https://groups.io/g/nccc-blue

Contestonlinescore.com has a slot set up for us if you’d like to make sure your logger is talking to the world.  Select NCCC NA RTTY Sprint.

Report scores to 3830scores.com, and join us at 0300Z on 3610 kHz (+/- a few for ongoing groups) for comments and questions (and dinner menus).

Diddle diddle,

Ken K6MR