[UK-CONTEST] General Rules

[Dave Sergeant]

On 7 Feb 2010 at 13:34, Rob Harrison wrote:

> Seem to remember quite a few years ago the /A suffix was done away with
> and there was only fixed & /P. However this seems to be blurred, as
> stations are using /A and as you say the licence doesn't seem to say
> otherwise. It was probably administrive, rather than operational. Can
> anyone clarify this?
> 

No....

You are right in that for some years the old /A prefix was dropped and 
we had to use /P to indicate we were away from the licence address 
(either fixed or portable). But when the new license was drawn up 
recently /A was reinstated, with its former meaning (but there seems to 
be confusion on what the licence means by 'alternative address' and 
'temporary location').

Basically as far as the licence is concerned the suffixes are optional 
but RECOMMENDED - see note (d)

/A - 'Alternative address' away from the address on your licence but in 
a building (usually but not always with mains electricity).
/P - Portable, ie in a field in a tent or on top of a hill in SOTA or 
whatever.

Although no longer mandatory (but still recommended) if you are 
operating in the portable section of the contest, or in of NFD and VHF 
NFD, you would be pretty silly not to send the /P.

The VHF rules clearly need changing in this area. It should certainly 
be possible to operate in the non-portable sections from a different 
address and indicate so with a /A.

73 Dave G3YMC

http://www.davesergeant.com