[Fists] Commonwealth Contest 2005

[FISTS Club Down Under]

For the information of Canadian and Caribbean members:


Commonwealth Contest - 2005

There will be three confirmed ZL6 Stations operational during next weeks Commonwealth CW Contest 12 / 13 March 1000UTC / !000UTC - all of which will be multipliers. All three stations are to be operated by New Zealand Members of the FISTS CW Club Downunder.

ZL6A - N.Z.A.R.T. Headquarters Station - Operators John, ZL1BHQ #9625, Ken, ZL1AIH #9094.
This station will issue /HQ after the sent serial number.

ZL6FF -  FISTS CW Club Downunder N.Z. - Operator Jakey, ZL2JKY/G3JKY #6462.

ZL6QH - Quartz Hill. Wellington Amateur Radio Club - Operator Brian, ZL1AZE. #9078

Hopefully many other VK / ZL FISTS CW Club members (over 125 members) will take part, including our VK Club Stations. 

As an indication of what may happen, last years statistics listed a total of 936 different valid Commonwealth stations as being recorded in the logs. This is actually up on previous years. 597 individual stations were active from UK, 164 Canadian stations, 58 from Australia, 29 from New Zealand and 20 from South Africa. 
60 different Call Areas were active, but some of them were worked by only a select few: 

3B8, 3DAØ, 4S7, 5B, 5X, 5Z, 6Y, 7Q, 8P, 9H, 9J, 9M2, 9V, G, G(HQ), J3, J8, S2, T3Ø, V2, V3, V5, V8, VE1, VE2, VE3, VE4, VE5, VE6, VE7, VE9, VK2, VK3, VK4, VK4(HQ), VK5, VK6, VK7, VK8, VK9N, VO1, VP9, VQ9, VU, VU(HQ), VY2, Z2, ZB2, ZC4, ZF, ZK3, ZL1, ZL2, ZL3, ZL4, ZL6, ZS1, ZS2, ZS4, ZS6. 

To claim a Certificate you will need 68 Band / Call Areas this year and a request must be made in your log. (i.e. ZL1 worked on 5 Bands counts as 5 band / call areas). 

HQ stations count as a separate call area and will give /HQ after the sent serial number. Likely Calls will be GB5CC, VE?RAC, VK4WIA, VU2UR and ZL6A.

Operation is to be confined to the lower 30kHz of each Band. No WARC Bands.

Send RST followed by Serial Number starting with 001.

Remember - Operation is between stations licenced in Commonwealth Countries only. For example - 9J2 (Zambia) will be listening only for Commonwealth replies. A terrific advantage for our lower power / simple aerial entrants. 

Good Luck and have some fun working some of the rarer calls, that will be listening for you!

Regards,

Nigel, ZL2TX - Editor, FISTS DOWN UNDER Newsletter.