Got an e-mail asking for add’l ops from RI (& beyond!) in this weekend’s NA SSB Sprint – a 4-hour contest on 20/40/80m bands only, starting this Sat. eve at 7pm local, going ’til 11pm.  A new enthusiastic group of contesters has taken over sponsorship of this event from NCJ with full details at www.ssbsprint.com including a place to post your expected activity and lots of available participation prizes.   They hope to have ops from all 50 states on-air.  I plan at least part-time activity from here.  Anyone else able to provide the RI mult??

Sprints, billed as the fastest 4 hours in radiosport [assuming enough activity!], are quite fun but have a **unique** QSY rule preventing ops from ‘running’ on a particular frequency.  Takes just a bit of time to learn the rhythym — see the website for details including a ‘tips and advice’ link.   But essentially, you must QSY a minimum of 5 kHz after having called CQ *and* completing a QSO before CQing again; or QSY a minimum of 1 kHz before answering another CQer ( the so-called 5/1 rule).  Upon inheriting a frequency after answering  another CQer, you may remain there to call CQ yourself until completing 1 QSO — then you must QSY again!

Good luck and 73, Bill  W1WBB

Congratulations to Pat NG1G who was elected Contest Manager for the CTRI CG at the most recent club meeting this month.  Pat will assume his duties immediately…just in time for CQWW RTTY late this month!  Good luck Pat.

I would like to very enthusiastically thank Ken K3IU for his wonderful work in accurately maintaining the CTRI CG Intra-club Competition contest scores for each active club member throughout my time as C/M.  In addition, Ken posted the scores spreadsheet to the website after the contests for updated viewing by the members.  Outstanding  job Ken  —  Bravo Zulu as we would say in the Navy!

Best of luck to all this new contest season…this may be the last best period for optimum HF condx this solar cycle.

73 and good contesting!

Bill  W1WBB

The CQWW WPX Contests have grown in recent years to become some of the most popular worldwide contests.  The  48 hour SSB version takes place this weekend and the bands will be full of domestic and international stations.  Unlike ARRL DX and CQWW DX the WPX contests also provide points for domestic contacts so other U.S. stations can be worked for points (and their many prefixes counted) by us.

See the rules at the CQWW WPX website for the *many* operating categories (by power, assisted or unassisted, single band or all-band, single op or multi-op… and the ‘tribander/wires’ as well as ‘Rookie’ {licensed 3 yrs or less} overlay categories!) , scoring details (more points for low band contacts on 40, 80 and 160m) etc.  Note: Off-times must be a full 60 mins, logs are due NLT 5 days after the contest, and LP output pwr is 100 watts amongst other contest-specific rules… go to:   www.cqwpx.com

Callsign prefixes are the sole multiplier — so many rare and unusual calls will be heard, provide an abundance of contest multipliers throughout the weekend and help contribute to an exponentially growing final scoring total which makes for a lot of fun.  The many available prefixes also count towards the various WPX awards available through CQ magazine and which are now  tracked as part of ARRL’s Logbook of the World  electronic QSL tracking system.

The solar flux is expected to slowly increase thru this weekend and lowband conditions should improve as the geomagnetic indices decrease each night.

A record 5300 + logs were submitted for the 2012 CQWW WPX event and well over 1700 unique prefixes were available so the HF bands WILL be busy this weekend.  So check that microphone out, verify your logging software is up-to-date and then make some QSOs this Saturday and Sunday.

Good luck in the contest…73,  Bill  W1WBB

Initial results for the 2012 ARRL  November Sweestakes Phone contest can be found on ARRL’s website:   http://www.arrl.org/contest-results-articles

(Hopefully my link works THIS time!)   Big QSO totals from N1HRA and a ‘sweep’ as well from W1AN.  Lots of activity from the Ocean State kept the RI mult out of the super rare category.

Bill  W1WBB

Just a reminder – logs for last weekend’s CQWW 160m CW contest will be due this Friday NLT 2200Z.  The 5-day log submission deadline is now standard for all the CQ WW contest events and WILL apply to the upcoming CQWW WPX RTTY event as well.   Bill  W1WBB

CTRI CG members should post their claimed scores for this Topband event here — “soapbox” comments are certainly welcome!

Latest results for these two major HF contests have just been published and can be found here:   www.arrl.org/contest-results-articles    Just click on the contest of interest.

Ken K3IU and I helped keep RI just out of the Top Ten Most Rare sections on CW in Sweepstakes this past year.  Activity was strong locally in SS SSB and those results are pending.  GL to those playing in the ARRL VHF contest and NAQP SSB this weekend.

73,  Bill  W1WBB