[nrv-hams] Virginia QSO Party March 15-16

[Kay Craigie]

Virginia QSO Party - March 15-16

Our state's contest, sponsored by the Sterling Park ARC, is the middle of
the month, so it's time to get ready to play.  Full information, rules,
etc., are posted at

www.qsl.net/sterling/VA_QSO_Party/QSOParty.htm

The time period is Saturday, 15 March 1400 UTC - Sunday, 16 March 0200 UTC
and Sunday, 16 March 1200 UTC - 2400 UTC.  
(For Virginians this is Saturday 10 AM - 10 PM and Sunday 8 AM - 8 PM
Virginia local time.)

Operations are on phone, CW, and/or digital, as you prefer.

The exchange is a serial number and the abbreviation for your county or
independent city.  Operators outside Virginia will send us a serial number
and their state or Canadian province, or "DX" for other countries. You
should get a copy of the list of official county/city abbreviations from the
contest web site, or I can send it to you by e-mail.  Someone is bound to
ask you what the abbreviation is for your location.

If you plan to call CQ, remember that contesting is not practiced on 12, 17,
30, and 60 meters.
 
There's a handy-dandy tool for finding stations to work. It's a special DX
cluster purely for the VAQP. It can be accessed on the web at

www.qsoparty.com

and can be accessed via telnet within your logging program using the
information

spots.qsoparty.com port 7300

This cluster is operated by John Huggins KX4O as a service to us, and we owe
him a big thank-you for it. 

Although the VAQP contest rules do not prohibit self-spotting (calling
yourself out on the cluster), it is bad form and uncool to do it. Some state
contests will get after you for it and all major contests will disqualify
you for it, so don't form a bad habit. 

Those of us who don't have a 4 in our call sign may want to mention in our
CQ's that we are in Virginia. That's because stations in Virginia can work
anybody anywhere, whereas stations outside Virginia can only work us. 

Please feel free to relay this information to other clubs and ham groups.

Questions about the rules, etc., can be sent to the contest sponsors at
VQP at verizon.net. If you have questions about what I've written here, e-mail
me off the list. 73 - Kay N3KN