Hi all:
Lots of contest fun will be available this weekend. 10 meters was open
last Sunday for QSOs in the Washington State Salmon Run and I also
worked Europe (EA) on Sunday afternoon. Rick, NQ4I, reports that 10 M
has been open to Europe this week while I have been at work.
1. Scandinavian Activity Contest (SAC) SSB. 12 UTC Saturday to 12 UTC
Sunday. Exchange RS+serial number. Good operators and some rare
prefixes can be expected.
2. Alabama QSO Party. 18 to 24 UTC Saturday afternoon. Exchange RST
and Ala county or S/P/C. KU8E and K4BAI will be mobile in as many
counties as we can reach. W4NTI will be multi op. WA4JA will be QRV.
Bridget, KS4YT, and her club sponsor this contest and she has posted
some messages about other stations to look for this week. I still need
two counties in Alabama. Hope all Ala stations will get on and make
this a lot of fun. Jeff and I will be primarily CW but we hope to work
SSB also, particularly if the CW rate drops off. Dan always pleads for
a lot of 40 meter activity in this one. I worked 79 QSOs in the SC QSO
Party last weekend and all but 4 were on 40 meters. So, 40 meters can
be a great band. We will work 40, 20, 15 and 10. Note that the RJ/CQ
RTTY WW DX Contest runs the 48 hours of this weekend too, so that the
40-meter CW band will be crowded with RTTY signals late Saturday
afternoon. Please give any AL stations that you hear a call and
encourage this activity by a state that is largely within the SECC circle.
3. Texas QSO Party. This is one of the big ones. Sept 27 1400 UTC
until 02 UTC Sep 28 and again Sept 28 1400 to 2000 UTC. Exchange RST
and SPC or Texas county. Many awards. The Texas boys turn out on both
CW and SSB for this one and there are usually a lot of mobiles on both
modes. Note that, if you work a station on a county line, you must
exchange a RST and location for each county. Two QSOs and two potential
multipliers. There is a TQP module for NA for this contest. The new
website is (I think) www.txqp.org. If that doesn't work, do a web
search for Texas QSO Party. That's the way I found it since the old
website www.k5vuu.com doesn't work anymore.
Some calendars give this weekend for the Louisiana QSO Party also, but
it was held two weeks ago. Somewhere (in the Contest Corral maybe?), I
got the idea that the Arkansas QSO Party was this weekend too, but it
isn't listed on the SM3CER webpage. The WA7BNM webpage hasn't changed
from last week to this week yet. So, there may be an Arkansas QSO Party
this weekend too. Guess I should have done a websearch for it too.
Have fun and many QSOs!
73,
John, K4BAI.
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