The Power Management Contest

A Piggyback to the NA CW QSO Party

January 12-13, 2002


This is a short 12 hour contest of which you can only operate for 10 hours. There is a 100 watt power limit on the contest so it is perfect for jumping into QRP. The contest runs Saturday/Sunday January 12-13, 1800Z to 0600Z.

This contest is active enough that you should be forced to conserve power or you won't be able to work the entire contest. Let's see if that is true.

I don't have a color printer or any fanny stuff so this one is for fun. E-mail me a summery sheet after the contest and I'll post the results.


The Rules

Use any rig or rigs but you are limited to 10 AA batteries. Use any type - NiCD, NiMH, Alkaline, Renewal, or whatever you can find. You can only use one set of batteries. Once they are dead you are out of the contest. However you are free to continue in the NA QSO party itself. I encourage you to do so.

You cannot listen on one rig and transmit on a second rig unless both rigs are using the same set of batteries.

You cannot use a charger of any type during the contest. You are limited to the charge on the batteries prior to the start of the contest. Exception - if you use an external keyer it does not have to run from the AA batteries.

Scoring - Use NA QSO Party rules. That is QSOs times total of all SPC across the bands.

This is QRP so you are limited to 5 watts. There are no power classes. You can use a different power level for each QSO if you want. You will have to decide if it is better to use 100 mWatts and have to call the guy five times with three repeats to get him, or better to use 5 Watts and get him on one try. What you do may depend on how strong the other station is and if he a new multiplier. There are lot of issues to consider - strategy will be important. Should you use that power hungry rig to get a few multipliers on another band? Think about your strategy early on.

Reporting - Send summery sheet to wd3p@arrl.net. No attachement, all information should be in the body of the message. I do not open attachments most of the time. It should include a description of your set up and how you conserved power, what rigs you used, what batteries you used and the rating, and how many hours you operated. Also indicate why you ended the contest - batteries dead, rig needed more power than batteries could give, just felt like stopping, or whatever. Also provide a count of the total number of QSOs and SPCs per band plus your claimed score. Reports are due by January 31, 2002. I'd like them earlier if possible.

Be sure to send your logs in for the contest to the address given in the NA QSO party rules.


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