[UK-CONTEST] EU Sprint CW this Saturday

[Dave Lawley]

Great to see such a high level of activity in the 80m CC CW yesterday. 
Now for those who like a short but lively contest, here's one where you 
have to keep tuning the bands, it's not a case of sticking on a 
frequency and CQing.

In response to some heavy lobbying of I2UIY by GM3POI at Visalia last 
year, the contest times have been moved back by an hour. We have also 
swapped the Spring phone and CW weekends to avoid a clash with the 
Russian WSEM contest which has ruined the CW sprint in the last few years.

Particularly in view of these changes, and the increase in UK contest 
activity arising from the 80m events, I'm hoping for a bumper turn-out 
from the UK in these contests. They really can be great fun and test 
your agility in tuning the bands and finding stations to work. The new 
sprint times are now 16.00-19.59Z.

Full rules are at  www.eusprint.com  - unfortunately past results aren't 
available at the moment due to a server problem, but visit it once the 
server has been fixed and you'll see very comprehensive results and 
information, all put together by Royce M0RHI.

The basic idea of sprint contesting is that after soliciting a QSO (by 
CQ, QRZ or whatever) you must QSY by at least 2KHz. What usually happens 
is that the person who has just called and worked you stays on the 
frequency, solicits a contact and he must then, in turn, QSY. The 
contest is on 20, 40 and 80m and activity is mainly on 20 in the first 
hour, then perople start to move to 40, and 80 gets busy in the last 
hour. By moving the start time back an hour, we'll avoid the problem 
whereby it is still dark in some parts of the UK at the end of the 
contest, making 80m QSOs hard to come by.

SD supports the sprint, and ESM mode can make it easier to flip between 
'CQing' and 'calling' mode. By convention, when you have CQed you send 
both callsigns at the beginning of the exchange but when you have called 
a CQer, you send your callsign at the end of the exchange to signal to 
anyone tuning across the frequency that you are the one who will be 
soliciting the next contact. The sprint is also supported by Win-Test, 
TR, WL, N1MM and others.

Please email me if you have any more questions.

Dave G4BUO