[nrv-hams] Phone Band Fun on the Weekend

[Kay Craigie]

Looking for states to fill out your Worked All States award list?  This
coming weekend will be a good chance to do it in the ARRL's November
Sweepstakes, phone version.

The web address for full information about Sweepstakes is
http://www.arrl.org/sweepstakes.

The event begins at 2100 UTC on Saturday and ends at 0259 UTC on Monday.

Serious participants in the contest try to work as many ARRL and Radio
Amateurs of Canada (RAC) Sections as possible - there's a total of 83
Sections now. That's called making a Clean Sweep. I've never done it, though
I came close once. Puerto Rico and US Virgin Islands are ARRL Sections, by
the way. Hawaii stations will send "Pacific" as their Section.

The exchange (what we send and receive) is long and complicated:

*	A consecutive serial number
*	"Precedence" - "Q" for single operator QRP, "A" for single operator
up to 150 watts, "B" for single operator over 150 watts, "U" for single
operator regardless of power who's using assistance such as the DX Cluster,
"M" for multi-operator stations, "S" for school or college stations. 
*	Your call sign
*	"Check" - the last 2 digits of the year you were first licensed.
*	ARRL/RAC Section

For example, in my first contact in the contest, I would send this:
"One,  Bravo, November Three Kilo November, eighty-three, Virginia"

This says it's my contact number 1, single operator high power, my callsign,
first licensed in 1983, operating in the Virginia Section. My next contact
would be "Two, Bravo ." and so on. 

If you don't plan to send in an entry, you don't have to log all the
verbiage, but give it a try just for fun.  This contest was a bear back in
the days of pencil & paper logging. Some of these guys talk really fast.
Don't be afraid to ask them to repeat something if you missed it. Everybody
has to do that in this contest, sooner or later.

A twist in this contest is that we can work stations only once.  If you work
K5UR in Arkansas on 20 meters, don't call him again on 40 meters.

Do the exchange and the terminology (number, check, precedence) remind you
of the preamble of a radiogram? There's a reason for that. Sweepstakes began
as a traffic-handling contest in 1930. Now only the terminology survives.

As always, there is no contest activity on 12, 17, 30, and 60 meter bands.
The contest is phone-only this weekend, so CW and digital areas of the bands
will be available for other kinds of operating fun.

Grab your broom and get ready to sweep! 73 - Kay N3KN