ZS VHF CONTESTS & AWARDS
COMPILED BY BARRY ZR2DX
CONTESTS
SARL VHF CONTEST : Held over 2 legs, taking place on the
third full weekend of March and the third full weekend of September every
year, from 12:00 SAST on Saturday to 12:00 SAST on Sunday. Categories consist
of Portable station multi-mode,Fixed station multi-mode, andFixed station
FM only. Entrants in any Category may not change the location of the station
once the Contest has started. Any station must use a single callsign and
locator during the entire contest.
For more details consult the SARL website
(http://www.sarl.org.za).
PEARS VHF CONTEST: The Port Elizabeth Amateur Radio Society's
(PEARS) national VHF/UHF contest will take place on the third weekend of
January each year, and is open to all
Southern African amateurs. This 48 hour long
contest is scheduled for the best time of the year to make long distance
Tropo contacts on the 144, 432 and 1296 MHz bands. The 50 and 144 MHz bands
also
provide
Meteor Scatter contacts in the mornings and Sporadic-E openings could appear
in the daytime, so keep an eye on the VHF beacons. In order to keep the
playing field level and fair to all, the contest is limited to South Africa
and neighbouring
countries only.
PEARS DIGITAL & MICROWAVE CONTEST : The Port Elizabeth Amateur Radio Society (PEARS) has responded to requests made by the top VHF amateurs in the RSA to introduce a special Microwave and Digital contest that will run concurrently with each other. This 48-hour contest will take place on the second weekend of June each year, and is open to all amateurs The motivation behind this contest is to encourage amateurs to explore and experiment on the bands and transmission modes of the future.
For further information on the PEARS contests, see the Contests page on this site.
CONTEST LOGGING SOFTWARE
Nico ZS4NS has written logging software for both the SARL and PEARS VHF contests.
These can be downloaded from this site. Hopefully Nico can be persuaded
to add a program for the PEARS Digital contest too!
DOWNLOAD SARL VHF CONTEST LOGGING SOFTWARE
DOWNLOAD PEARS VHF CONTEST LOGGING SOFTWARE
Hal ZS6WB writes: The SARL VHF Contest is coming up on the 21st and 22nd of September. This contest has become very much a non-event in recent years and presently the PEARS VHF Contest in January in its relatively short existance has become the premier VHF event of the year. We need more activity on the VHF bands throughout the year and perhaps the time is here for another group to offer to promote and administer the SARL event. When the Pretoria Branch (now PARC) relinquished adminstration around 1990 we regularly received in the region of 100 logs and recently only a small percentage of that number are being received by the present contest administrators.
AWARDS
VUCC (VHF/UHF Century Club) - VUCC was introduced by the ARRL just 20 years
ago on January 1, 1983 as the VHFers equivelent of the DXCC program. In North
America and Europe especially, the program is extremely popular and the battles
fought to reach the top of the standings list are as fierce as the DXers
fight to reach the top of the DXCC Honor Roll. For those not familiar with
the program, initial qualification comes with working 100 grid squares on
50 MHz, 144 MHz or Satellite, 50 squares on 432 MHz and smaller numbers on
the microwave bands. Endorsements are offered on 50 and 144 for each additional
25 squares. At present the top of the heap on 50 MHz is around 1150 squares.
For our VHFers, this program makes a great long-term goal and the VUCC Award
would look great hanging on your shack wall.
For more information on the VUCC program, as well as details of how to apply for the award, download this document in MS-Word format
SOUTHERN AFRICAN VHF CENTURY AWARD
: This is a new award sponsored by the Port Elizabeth
Amateur Radio Society (PEARS). This award is available to all amateur
radio operators
for contacts made since
1st January
2004.
The
aim
is to contact
Maidenhead
grid
locators on
the African mainland South of the Equator on the 6 metre and 2 metre amateur
bands and certificates will be awarded for each of these bands. The award
may be endorsed for analog contacts or digital contacts. Both endorsements
may be obtained, but each endorsement must be obtained with strictly analog
contacts and strictly digital contacts. There is no mixed-mode category.
For the purpose of this award CW will be classified as an analog mode. Only
one contact per grid locator is eligible.
Scoring: A contact in your own grid
locator scores 1 point. A contact in each grid locator encircling your grid
locator will count 2 points. A contact
in each grid locator encircling these grid locators counts 3 points, and
so on up to a maximum of 5 points. The sum of these points is multiplied
by the number of grid locators contacted to obtain a total points score.
International stations : all contacts are worth 5 points.
There are three categories
for the award:
Bronze Award: Score at least 100 points in 8 grid locators
Silver Award : Score at least 250 points in 12 grid locators.
Gold Award : Score at least 500 points and 16 grid locators.
All contacts must
be made from within a radius of 25 kilometres and must be made on simplex.
No contacts via repeaters, satellite or Moonbounce (EME)
will be eligible. Grid locators activated for the sole benefit of a specific
station will result in the disqualification of this station. Contacts must
be confirmed either by QSL cards or by other means acceptable to the awards
committee, such as electronic means. Decisions made by the awards committee
shall be final. Applications for the above
awards can be submitted to : THE AWARDS COMMITTEE,
PO BOX 10402, LINTON GRANGE, PORT ELIZABETH, 6015, SOUTH AFRICA
PRETORIA AMATEUR RADIO CLUB VHF AWARD - The Pretoria Amateur Radio Club offers an award to any amateur working 15 grids in Southern Africa on 50MHz. See the PARC Website for more information.