The contest is held on the second full weekend of December. Starts 0000 UTC Saturday; runs through 2359 UTC Sunday (December 9-10, 2023) and is limited to the 10-meter band. That is actuall from 7:00pm Eastern Friday night but after sunset so the bands will not be at their best. You may operate from either your home QTH or join us at Buddy’s QTH in Oneida. Light refreshments/lunch will be available and a free will offering will be taken. We are working diligently to get a 5-element beam (possibly a second 3 element too!) up about 50-feet and will have an amplifier (600-1500 watts) which should help with our signals.

We will be on the air from 08:00 AM EST Saturday and Sunday until about 06:00 PM EST. There will be various radios and antennas set up for your use. We will also have ‘Elmers’ to assist you with the contest and HF radio basics plus logging of your contacts. No license = No problem as we can be the control operator for you as well.

The contest is geared for both individuals and clubs like ours. Individual logs will be submitted for each participant and by listing Big South Fork ARC in the submission all of our contacts will be pooled together for a club entry. This is a fun way of making contacts and helping the club at the same time.

·      For the exchange all you need to do is send your state (TN Tango November) to the other station you are contacting.

·      Scoring will be handled by KF4TY when the logs are entered. Each phone/SSB voice contact is worth 2 points and 4 points for each CW contact. Each state, Canadian province or DXCC (other country not US, Canada or Mexico) are considered multipliers. Each multiplier counts once on phone and once on CW which is why we need contacts for BOTH modes! The more states, provinces etc we contact as a club the bigger the multiplier will be. You will be competing on your own (using your own call sign) and being a member of BSFARC we will combine your contacts with other club members for a club entry as well.

·      Power categories are 5-watts or less is considered QRP, 100 watts or less is low power and more than 100 watts is considered high power (max 1500 watts). We will need to know what power level you used if we are submitting on your behalf.

·      Let us know if you used spotting pages (self-posted) or social media, live streaming etc as that puts you in a different category.

·      Each transmitter used for a contact is limited to one call sign. No passing the microphone around the room. Each operator is limited to a single call sign per contact. You cannot use the club’s call and yours for the same contact.

·      Operators must be eligible members in good standing of the club designated and must reside and operate in the club territory which is a 250-mile radius of grid square of Em76rm. We have verified everyone’s eligibility and submitted the list to ARRL. We are also defined as a medium-sized club as we have more than 10 members but fewer than 50.

·      Preference is for everyone to use a logging program, and we can help with ac conversion from paper logging if needed. The following basic information is needed to submit for the contest:

o  Call sign used (Your call sign)

o  Frequency of the contact

o  Mode either PH (Phone/SSB) or CW

o  Date and UTC time. No local times please!

o  The other station’s call sign.

o  Their state or country

·      Link to a PDF formatted log page: http://www.arrl.org/files/file/Contest%20Logs/16010log.pdf

·      Logs are due within SEVEN (7) days after the event is over. Each entry must clearly indicate the club’s name (Big South Fork ARC) in the Cabrillo file header.

·      If you feel confident and have logged your contacts using a logging program you can either export them to a Cabrillo file (be sure to name Big South Fork ARC) for the CLUB line or you can also send an ADIF log to KF4TY and we will double check your file and convert it to the correct Cabrillo format and can even upload it for you. The other option is to send a picture of your paper log to KF4TY or text it to KF4TY and we will enter that information into a logging program and submit on your behalf. We can also send you an ADIF file for your records if requested.

·      As a club we need a minimum of three entries (3 operators/call signs) from eligible club members must be submitted. All club members have been submitted and will be recognized for the 10-meter contest. A club member’s score must be shown on the contest results web site to be counted for our club. Only that score shown in the results (or in subsequent corrections) will count for the Affiliated Club Competition.