[NLRS] ARRL January VHF Contest and the Minnesota QSO Party

[Jon Platt]

Hello NLRS land -

There are two pending, and really fun, mid-winter operating activities just ahead of us.  

First is this weekends ARRL January VHF Contest that begins 1900 UTC on Saturday and ends 0359 UTC on Monday (Sunday night).  The contest exchange is grid squares.  There is a link to the full contest rules as well as the W0UC Activity spread sheet on the NLRS home page at www.NLRS.org.   

The second pending event is the 18th annual Minnesota QSO Party held on Saturday, Feb 6, 1800 UTC to 2400 UTC.   This is a HF contest so disconnect your IF rig and connect it to a long piece of wire !   Phone, CW, digital.   The contest exchange for MN based stations is your first name and your MN county.  Stations outside of MN send their first name and their State or Province.   Minnesota works everyone, everyone works Minnesota stations.   You can find a link to the full contest rules on the NLRS home page, or go to www.w0aa.org and click on MN QSO Party on the left side.   If you plan to be active in the MnQP, drop me a note with you call sign and your MN county and I will pass that information along to K0PC who maintains the MnQP Activity page that is on that same website.   (PS - this is a really fun contest to operate as a mobile as just like grids in VHF contests, when you move into a different MN county you are fresh meat again).  

73, Jon
W0ZQ