[UK-CONTEST] op times and other thoughts

[Phil Cooper]

Hi all,

Berni, I can't see a problem with the operating times at all. The contest
finishes at 2130, ie it is PAST the end at 21:30:01, so you have to log that
last one at 2129, even if it is at 21.29 and 61 seconds!
As for the start, you can start at 20:00:00 and not a second before!

Nor do I see a problem with having contacts before the start, as a way of
holding the frequency. And if some folk trawl the band, entering stuff in
the bandmap, that is fair game. However, a word of caution - make sure you
enter the right half of the QSO! I have heard stations TESTING TESTING right
up to the last minute, only to find they have to QSY due to QRM or whatever.

Also, I am wondering what sort of spread of contacts are there across the
country? The 80m CC seems to be much harder from this far south, so I wonder
if it is as hard from GM?

As for the band-plan for these contests, I feel that 10kc for the QRS
stations is probably more than enough, jusging by the amount of empty space
last night! I also wonder about using PSK in the DATA leg. I don't
personally run PSK in this part, just good old RTTY, but from what I have
heard, there are usually only a couple of stations calling CQ test in PSK.

It does make you wonder if these contests are now suffering from too much
success! In the RTTY section, there are far more stations squeezed into such
a small bandwidth, and now not helped in the last two legs from several G's
using SSB on 3.600.

Despite all that, these contests are great fun.
See you next month, as I am not sure I can muster up the desire to run SSB.

73 de Phil GU0SUP



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