Hi folks,

It's that time of the month again to wind down the power and dust off those antenna for the next GQN contest this Saturday, 29th March starting at 2100 local time.

Last event saw fantastic results using 1W, and I expect that to continue this Saturday. Don't be afraid to get those attenuators out!

I'd like to issue a challenge this month to any station that can work any other station on 100mW, SSB or CW. We might as well take advantage of conditions while they last! There won't be any points on offer, but the bragging rights will be significant.

The new log:

The new log forms are available from the GQN website. You can use either the Excel version or the LibreOffice version, both should be equivalent apart from some visual differences. Old logs are still valid so don't worry if you can't access the new log for some reason.

Digital contest updates:

After the practise run earlier in the month, there will be a few changes because of experience gained so far:

• Power will be limited to 1 watt, as 5 watts was overkill
• Turbo speed is in use to speed the QSO
• A "standard QSO string" will be in use to hopefully make life easier for everyone

The start of the digital contest will be delayed until April 17th, and it may be delayed again if there need to be more changes and testing. There will be a test run next month, on the 12th of April to test these changes.

As for future plans, there is a possibility of running a digital mode non-contest event where each month a different digital mode will be used. There is a long list of little-used digital modes that should work pretty well when QRPing. Further details are in the works, please feel free to chip in with any feedback or suggestions etc.