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The Society of Midwest Contesters
The Society of Midwest Contesters
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When should I take off-time for Sweepstakes?

11/13/2014 – The question came up, when should I be taking my off-time for Sweepstakes.  As a reminder, you can operate 24 of the 30 hours.  For your first break, the traditional Midwest thinking is to operate as long as the rate is decent on Saturday night.  This is usually around 2 a.m. to 3 a.m. CT (08-09 zulu).  You would take off about 3-4 hours, until the East Coast wakes up and then get back on the low bands for those close- in QSOs.  You would then take various 30-60 minute breaks throughout Sunday to break up the monotony.  In the 2013 ARRL November Phone Sweepstakes write-up, they published a graph of QSOs by hour for the the entire contest.  You might want to study this to develop your own plan.  Please keep in mind that this data is for the entire geographic area, and Midwest best times and strategies may not line up exactly with this chart.  Of course, it would be great if we could have a similar chart just for W9!

 Click on the graph to enlarge

ss-phone-qs-per-hourQST, June 2014

 

Proposed Changes to the ARRL VHF/UHF Contest Rules

11/12/2014 – Please find attached a copy of the first request for input from the VHF/UHF Contest Community for proposed changes to the ARRL VHF/UHF Contest Rules. This letter represents a consensus of the ARRL Programs and Services Committee,  Sub-Committee on VHF Contesting that is comprised of;  Joel Harrison, W5ZN; Doug Rehman, K4AC; Marty Woll, N6VI; Dave Patton, NN1N; and Kermit Carlson, W9XA.

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2014 NAQP Intra-Club Competition

SMC takes a big step forward!

PVRC: 1,374,342,967
SMC:   1,097,876,133
NCCC: 1,070,524,319

Halftime Score:
PVRC: 857,723,502 points
NCCC: 724,265,230 points
SMC: 637,072,294 points

11/11/2014 – It has been noted that SMC has the highest club member participation. We came from behind and moved to second place in the summer competition. Notice we still had the lowest point scores but won with member participation.

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SMC Sweepstakes Sweepstakes

10/13/2014 – SMC competes in the ARRL November Sweepstakes club competition in the “Unlimited” club category (see http://www.arrl.org/sweepstakes). To be competitive, we need to have as many members as possible operate, in both the CW and phone events, and then submit their logs, regardless of score.  As a way to boost activity, SMC will have its own intraclub competition, the 2014 Sweepstakes Sweepstakes, for which all SMC members will be divided into 5 geographic teams.  Which team will win?  Logs with big scores will boost your team’s score but the team with the most logs submitted will be hard to beat.  You can see the rules for our Sweepstakes Sweepstakes, including team assignments, at: The SMC Sweepstakes Sweepstakes Rules .

Thanks to Tim, K9WX for doing all of the work on this with feedback from our membership.

Board Meeting – SMC Sweepstakes Awards

10/2/2014 – We just completed a Skype meeting of the directors of the SMC. The board has endorsed encouraging our members to get into Sweepstakes.

An SMC coffee cup will be awarded to each of the following:

  • First time Phone entrant over 100 QSOs
  • First time CW entrant over 100 QSOs
  • First time Phone and CW entrant over 200 QSOs combined (not a duplicate winner from CW or Phone  awards)
  • Highest score of anyone under age 20
  • Highest score of anyone between 20 and 30 years
  • Highest HP score for wires only CW and SSB (2 awards or one if same person)
  • Highest LP score for wires only CW and SSB (2 awards or one if same person)
  • Wires are defined as single element antennas including vertical with radials.
  • Best score by a 2014 new member over 100 QSOs

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