[SECC] This Week End on the Air

[John Laney]

Just a quick reminder. There are at least two fun events for this weekend.

The Radio Amateurs of Canada (RAC) Winter Contest is the 24 hours of 
Saturday UTC.  That means 7 PM EDT today until 6:59 PM EDT tomorrow.
This is SSB and CW on 160 through 10 meters.  Exchange for us is RS(T) 
plus serial # (begin with #1).  Canadians will send their province or 
territory instead of a QSO #.  There is usually a lot of activity in 
this contest and you can work everyone, not just Canadians.  Of course, 
the Canadians give you more points and the only multipliers.  This can 
be a lot of fun for a few minutes up to the whole 24 hours.

The Stew Perry Top Band Contest will be CW only on 160M only from 
Saturday morning until Sunday morning.  Any time the band is open 
Saturday afternoon until after the band closes on Sunday morning will be 
contest time for us.  Exchange is the four digit Maidenhead Grid Square. 
  For example, for me, it is EM72.  I think if you look up your call on 
QRZ.com and go to "Details," it will give you the Grid Square for your 
FCC mailing address.  Also, for SECC members, our grid squares the best 
we know them appear on the SECC roster on the home page.  This is a 
distance based contest and we don't know the results until the logs are 
matched up and distances figured by a computer.  160M CW will be pretty 
busy when open this weekend.  160M was hopping Thursday night with DX 
from all over Europe.  I worked SM3EVR with my compromise antenna.  If 
you run LP or QRP, you give the stations you work extra points for 
hearing you and there may be a power multiplier also.

For those who are inclined to work high speed DX on CW, the Russian 
Sponsored RAEM contest runs from 0000 to 0900Z Sunday (starts Saturday 
night).  You send QSO# plus your latitude and longitude.  For example: 
00125N130O.  I just made up the lat and long, but you should get the 
idea.  "O" is for East.  Otherwise the directions are N, S, W, as you 
might expect.  If you don't have 160M capability, this could be fun, but 
unless something breaks here for 160M, I will miss most, if not all, of 
this one.

Have a good weekend and e-mail me if you have any questions.

73, John, K4BAI.