To all FT4 operators worldwide:
The Northern California Contest Club is again pleased to sponsor our weekly
FT4 Sprint, aka FT4 NS (NCCC Sprint). 12 stations listed their score on
3930 last week, with 6 of them making more than 20 QSOs.
This contest is held every Friday UTC between 0100Z and 0130Z. That's
Thursday evening in North America.
Please read the rules carefully. They are posted at the following location:
https://www.ncccsprint.com/ft4ns.html
*NOTE THE SPECIAL RULE FOR THIS CONTEST:*
One thing that makes this contest unique is the elimination of excessive
handshaking (e.g., R, RRR, RR 73, etc.) at the end of a contact. A valid
contact can be made after two ops exchange their callsigns, exchange their
grid squares, and send a single “R”. That’s it. All that can be done in
just two transmissions.
This unique rule has been encoded into software by our friend Uwe DG2YCB in
the current version
2.7.0RC2 of WSJT-X Improved. To get this update, go to:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/wsjt-x-improved/files/WSJT-X_v2.7.0/
There are actually 3 versions of this software available: Regular WSJT
display, AL (Alternate Layout), and Widescreen. If you have the space for
AL or the display for Widescreen, it may be interesting to try one of the
other display formats. An additional benefit of this software is that if
you right-click on the “H” button in the lower left of the main WSJT-X
screen, you will toggle between the special FT4 Sprint exchanges
(comprising grid squares and the elimination of excessive R’ing that I
described above) and the standard FT4 exchanges (comprising signal report
in dB and lots of R’ing at the end of the QSO). This toggling feature is
helpful for working people who aren’t in the contest, but whom we hope to
lure into the contest in future weeks.
*FREQUENCIES. PLEASE READ CAREFULLY:*
Many of you have expressed your thoughts as to what frequencies should be
used for this contest. Many of you have very strong opinions on this. The
Contest Committee has considered all of your comments very carefully, and
we are well aware of the issues. Last week, we tried an experiment in
which we asked people to use a special set of FT4 Sprint frequencies
separate and apart from the standard FT4 frequencies. Some ops didn’t read
W1UE’s announcement on this carefully, and, for other reasons as well, the
result was that last week some ops used the standard frequencies, some ops
used the new frequencies, and some ops used both sets of frequencies. For
this week, your Contest Committee is asking you to:
*USE THE STANDARD FT4 FREQUENCIES, BUT ON 40 METERS CHECK OUT 7.080
BECAUSE THE STANDARD FT4 FREQUENCY IS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CW PORTION OF
THE BAND *
The standard FT4 frequencies are listed in the official rules, for which I
have given you the link above.
The posted rules list “any” as the frequency(ies) for 160 meters, but for
those of you who want to give 160 a whirl, try 1.836.
Good luck to all, and I hope to work you all this Thursday evening on
multiple bands (unless the CME coming gets us all!)
73, Dennis W1UE
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