[SESprint] SSB North American Sprint Saturday Night

[John Laney]

Hello all:

The group sponsoring the SSB North American Sprint Contest, which will 
have its first running this Saturday night local time 7-11 PM EST and 
Sunday 0000-0400Z has changed the rules slightly and is recognizing 
teams of five members instead of the former ten. That should make it 
easier to get up teams.  I will be glad to register teams before the 
start of the contest.  Please let me know if you would like to be on a 
team, if you will be HP, LP, or QRP and if you will be full time or part 
time.  The more teams, the better.

Exchange is both calls, #, name, SPC.  Mults are States, Canadian areas 
(same as before), Add Hawaii, and North American countries.  You may 
work anyone, but those are the only ones that count for mults.  Mults 
are counted once per contest and not per band.

There is a 1/5 kHz QSY rule.  If you solicit a contact by CQ, QRZ, or 
otherwise, you must QSY after making one QSO.  The station you worked 
inherits the frequency and will take callers there.  You must QSY at 
least one kHz to call another station or 5 kHz to call CQ.

It is just 20, 40, and 75M SSB.  See the web page for exact frequencies 
suggested, but they basically suggest operating in the lower part of the 
General Class bands and the upper part of the Extra class bands (except 
avoid the DX Window 3790-3800 kHz).

This was a tremendously popular contest in the 1980s and 1990s and was 
sponsored by NCJ. They discontinued support with this contest and a 
group headed by Bob, KW8N, has taken over and is really beating the 
bushes for commitments to operate.  This contest can be a lot of fun and 
will give you experience with the Sprint format and the QSY rules.

Try to have two ways of giving the exchanges:

If you have been called by someone else, use:  His call, your call, #, 
Name, SPC.  No call at the end and no one should therefore call you, but 
the other station comes back and he gives his information in this order: 
  Your call, #, name, SPC, and his call at the end.  His call at the end 
is a clue that (after a slight pause for a QSL message or a request for 
a repeat) he is inheriting the frequency and will be listening for 
callers.  It sounds a bit confusing, but after a while you will get the 
hang of it and sometimes the CQ station will say something like 
"thanks...your frequency."  That's your cue to CQ unless someone is 
already calling you.

Activity will begin on 20.  Ideally, I like to spend one hour twenty 
minutes on each band, but there is nothing magic about that.  If 20 goes 
long early and there aren't many to work there, I'll go to 40 earlier. 
I will probably check back on 20 for any stragglers when the rate slows 
on 40.  I will be on 80 for the last hour or so unless I run totally out 
of QSOs there, in which case, I will go back to 40 and alternate between 
40 and 80 toward the end.

Please post your score to 3830.  Also, upload your log to the website or 
send in your Cabrillo file by e-mail.  There is a short window for log 
submission.  Check the rules, but you will be OK if you submit within a 
few days.

So:  QRV for team requests.  I'll try to group by power and geographical 
or club areas if there is a lot of interest.  Feel free to pass this 
along to others in your area who might not be on a team otherwise.

73, John, K4BAI
For SECC.