Does anyone know what contests are scheduled for next Sat/Sun? For a first real outing since being stented, I have a chance to try one of Shining Tor (and the Cat & Fiddle), Gun Hill, The Cloud (with Tom’s permission, HI) or even Kinder over next weekend, depending on the weather and how things go uphill with a pack. However, it seems there is little point in trying to get out HF QRP ssb when there is a major contest on.
Regards, Dave, M0DFA/G6DTN
In reply to M0DFA:
Hi Dave
The contest calendar now appears in the monthly Newsletter, out next Saturday.
I will reproduce it below:-
CONTEST CALENDAR - MARCH 2008 BY G4SSH
The following scheduled contests are expected to cause severe QRM to SOTA activity, especially on the 40m band. Activators should plan accordingly with alternate spots.
1st-2nd 0000-2400 ARRL International DX contest SSB
2nd only 0800-1200 Ukraine RTTY contest
8th-9th 1000-1000 RSGB BERU Contest CW
8th only 1400-2200 AGCW QRP contest
9th only 0700-1000 Belgian UBA Spring CW contest
15th-16th 1200-1200 Russian DX Contest CW & SWSB
22nd-24th 0000-0400 BARTG HF RTTY contest
29th-30th 0000-2359 CQ World-Wide WPX contest SSB
As the ARRL contest requires contacts with the USA you may find 40 reasonably clear between 0900-1300 as EU contesters choose the higher bands.
The RTTY contest on the Sunday morning will cause problems on 40m
Good Luck
73
Roy G4SSH
In reply to M0DFA:
Hi Dave
Here are a couple of good places to check out the contest calender for now and the future:
http://www.hornucopia.com/contestcal/index.html
73 Marc G0AZS … currently K1UG/6
It is the RSGB 144/432 MHz March Contest (1400-1400) on 1st-2nd March
Whilst you are unlikely to suffer the same sort of QRM from this that you find in major HF contests it will perhaps be busier on the VHF bands than most other weekends. (He says hopefully - as I should be out as G0LGS/P for some of the 24 hours).
The Rules for these RSGB VHF contests have been revised a little since last year (General Rule 4f is the one that covers multiple contacts if anyone is interested).
If you happen to operate from more than one Hill during this event and you try calling any station entering the contest more than once on each band you may politely (I would hope) be told ‘we have already worked’.
I’ll be happy to work any of you just for the extra few Chaser points (I’ll try to keep my own mental record of any /P Summit stations to avoid duplicate contacts in my contest log, but the logging software will catch them for me anyway). It helps if you have the IARU Locator square handy but I can manage with just the SOTA reference.
Stewart