[SECC] This weekend's contests (plus Monday night)

[John Laney]

Hello all:

1.  Of course, the big contest for most of us this weekend will be the 
NCJ NA Sprint CW contest Saturday night (00 to 04 UTC Feb. 1).  Note 
that this is the correct date, NOT Feb. 15 as originally scheduled.

80, 40, 20 M, CW only, Exchange QSO #, Name and SPC in NA and both 
callsigns.  QSY rule requires 1 khz QSY for a new QSO after working a 
station who answered your CQ and 5 khz for a new CQ.  It is best to sign 
your call before the information when you have been called after a CQ 
and to sign your call at the end of the QSO if you are working someone 
who called CQ and you replied, so you get to stay on the frequency for 
one more QSO.  Example:  CQ by K4BAI answered by K4GA.
K4BAI:  K4GA K4BAI 100 JOHN GA.  K4GA:  K4BAI 100 MAC GA K4GA.  So, if 
you hear a call signed at the end of information, wait just a second for 
the acknowledgement (or request for repeat) by the CQ station and then 
you can call.  Multipliers are NA SPC per contest, not per band.  No 
power limit except as provided by licensing authority.  KH6 is not North 
America.  Stations outside NA may be contacted for QSO points only, not 
multipliers.  Logs due in 7 days.  Complete info at: 
http://www.ncjweb.com.  Each station may be worked 3 times, once on each 
contest band.  Some ops will begin on 40 and this may be very important 
due to the long skip at night on 40.  In fact, we may have long skip 
already at 00 UTC.  However, the multipliers should be available on 80, 
but we could have long skip there too.  Might be a good idea to operate 
maybe 15 minutes on 40 at the beginning if rates are good and then go to 
20.  Of course, 20 is closing early these days and you may jeopardize 
your QSO total on 20 if you stay too long on 40 at the beginning. 
Center suggested frequencies 3540, 7040, 14040.  A good article for 
first timers can be found at:  http://www.contesting.com/articles/198.

2.  UBA SSB contest.  13 UTC Sat Jan 31 to 13 UTC Sun Feb 1.  80 through 
10 M.  Avoid frequencies above 14300, and 21350 and use 28.4 to 28.7 on 
10 M.  Exchange is RS + serial number beginning with 001 per log (not 
per band).  Belgian stations also give their province abbreviations such 
as 599001/WV.  There are 11 provinces including Brussels region (BR). 
Belgian stations count 10 points, "EU member" stations count 3 points. 
Any other station counts 1 point.  Apparently, you can work any station, 
but the focus will be on Belgium and the European Union countries. 
Multipliers are Belgian provinces plus Belgian prefixes (so one ON 
station can be two multipliers and one QSO) plus European Union DXCC 
countries (list is on the webpage).  Multipliers apparently are counted 
once per band (at least that is what N0AX says in the ARRL Contest Rate 
Sheet, although the wording is confusing to me).  Complete info: 
http://www.uba.be/hf_contests/rules/ubatestworld_en.html.

3.  Spartan Sprint, CW.  02 UTC to 04 UTC Feb 4 (Monday night 9 to 11 PM 
local time).  QRP contest.  3560, 7040, 14060, 21060, 28060.  Exchange: 
  RST, SPC, and power output.  Submit score ASAP to website and 
sponsoring club will send out a report within a few days.  I recommend 
determining before 02 UTC that 10 and 15 are dead (if in fact they are 
as I predict), start on 20 (it may be almost dead too), go to 40 when 
you have worked 20 out, and go to 80 when the rate drops on 40.  This is 
a very popular activity and you can have a lot of fun with 5 watts or 
less.  Or with higher power, you can make the QRP guys happy with a few 
QSOs.  Working QRP stations and copying their exchanges will improve 
your weak signal copying ability.  At this time of the year and this 
time of the cycle, 80 could be a very good band in this contest, as it 
is less cluttered with QRM, SSB, digital stuff than 40 and the long skip 
will not be as much of a handicap there.  I will probably not be able to 
be QRV in this one unless it is for the last few minutes, so others of 
you should put our southeastern area on the map.  http://www.arsqrp.com.

If anyone reports scores to me, to the SECC reflector, or to 3830 so 
that I have them by the middle of the week and there are more than one 
score reported, I will summarize them for the reflector.

Hope everyone one has a lot of fun and a lot of QSOs this weekend and 
Monday.

73,


John, K4BAI.