Contester's Rate Sheet for August 10, 2005
*********************** Contester's Rate Sheet 10 August 2005 *********************** Edited by Ward Silver N0AX SUMMARY o WAE CW Kicks Off Fall Contest Season, MD-DC and NJ QSO Parties o New Line Scores for ARRL Contests and VHF/UHF Advisory Committee o Mid-Atlantic and Pacific NW VHF Conferences o California QSO Party Records, MI & NE QSO Party Results o Propagation Planning by K9LA o N1LO's Tower and Antenna Compendium o KR1ST's 70cm Stack of Halos o Does This Make Ham Radio "Better"? BULLETINS o Experimental 6-meter licenses have been issued for Hungarian stations for the first "magic band" operations from HA - see the story below. BUSTED QSOS o I stirred up some trouble last week by confusing Sable and St. Paul Islands (K1LZ took his tumble on St. Paul) and suggesting that the ARRL log received listing was closed (it's not). Suitably chastened, I proceed with the present issue. ANNOUNCEMENTS & NOTICES FOR 10 AUGUST TO 23 AUGUST 2005 Logs are due for the following contests: August 10 - DL-DX RTTY Contest, email logs to: [email protected], paper logs and diskettes to: (none), find rules at: http://www.drcg.de/dl-dx/rules_eng.html August 10 - Great Lakes Sweepstakes, email logs to: [email protected], paper logs and diskettes to: Sean Fleming K8KHZ, 27120 Barrington St, Madison Heights, MI 48071, USA, find rules at: http://mdxa1.org/GLSWEEPSRULES.html August 16 - CQC Great Colorado Gold Rush, email logs to: [email protected], paper logs and diskettes to: Colorado QRP Club, PO Box 17174, Golden, CO 80402-6019, USA, find rules at: http://www.cqc.org/contests/gold2005.htm August 18 - DIE Contest, email logs to: [email protected], paper logs and diskettes to: EA5AEN, PO Box 11055, Valencia, Spain, find rules at: http://www.ea5ol.net/die/Die_contest_04.htm August 18 - Quebec QSO Party, email logs to: [email protected], paper logs and diskettes to: Radio Amateur du Quebec (QQP), 4545, Av. Pierre-de-Coubertin, C.P. 1000, Succursale M Montreal, QC H1V 3R2, Canada, find rules at: http://www.raqi.ca/qqp/qqp-e.pdf August 19 - VK/Trans-Tasman 160m Contest, CW, email logs to: [email protected], paper logs and diskettes to: VK/trans-Tasman Contest 28 Crampton Crescent, Rosanna, VIC 3084, Australia, find rules at: http://home.iprimus.com.au/vktasman/RULES.HTM August 20 - North America QSO Party, CW (Aug), email logs to: (see rules, web upload preferred), upload log at: http://www.ncjweb.com/naqplogsubmit.php, paper logs and diskettes to: Bruce Horn WA7BNM, 4225 Farmdale Avenue, Studio City, CA 91604, USA, find rules at: http://www.ncjweb.com/naqprules.php August 21 - SARL HF Phone Contest, email logs to: [email protected], paper logs and diskettes to: Dennis Green ZS4BS, Box 12104, Brandhof, 9324 South Africa, find rules at: http://www.sarl.org.za/public/contests/contestrules.asp August 22 - 10-10 Int. Summer Contest, SSB, email logs to: [email protected], paper logs and diskettes to: Steve Rasmussen N0WY, #68684, 312 N. 6th Street, Plattsmouth, NE 68048, USA, find rules at: http://www.ten-ten.org/rules.html August 23 - RSGB RoPoCo 2, email logs to: [email protected], paper logs and diskettes to: RSGB G3UFY, 77 Bensham Manor Road, Thornton Heath, Surrey CR7 7AF, England, find rules at: http://www.contesting.co.uk/hfcc/rules/rropoco.shtml August 23 - Six Club Contest, email logs to: [email protected], paper logs and diskettes to: Jerry Gault N4AVM, Six Club Contest Director, 4804 Gaithers Pointe Dr, Durham, NC 27713, find rules at: http://www.6mt.com/contest.htm The following contests are scheduled: Note that the following abbreviations are used to condense the contest rules summaries: SO - Single-Op; M2 - Multi-Op - 2 Transmitters; MO - Multi-Op; MS - Multi-Op, Single Transmitter; MM - Multi-Op, Multiple Transmitters; AB - All Band; SB - Single Band; S/P/C - State/Province/DXCC Entity; HP - High Power; LP - Low Power; Entity - DXCC Entity HF CONTESTS Worked All Europe DX Contest--CW, sponsored by the Deutscher ARC from 0000Z Aug 13 - 2359Z Aug 14, (Phone is Sep 10 - 11; RTTY is Nov 12 - 13). Frequencies: 80-10 meters according to Region I band plan. Categories: SOHP, SOLP, MS, SWL. Spotting assistance allowed (SO stations not using spotting assistance will be noted). SO operate 36 hrs max., up to three off periods of 1 hour min. Non-EU work EU only except RTTY, where everyone works everyone. Exchange: RS(T) and serial number. Score 1 pt/QSO and 1 pt/QTC. Final score is QSOs + QTCs x weighted multipliers. Multipliers: non-EU use WAE countries, EU use DXCC entities plus call districts in W, VE, VK, ZL, ZS, JA, PY and RA8/9/0. (RTTY use WAE inside EU, DXCC outside EU, plus call districts.) Mults on 80m count x4, on 40m x3, otherwise x2. A QTC is a report sent from a non-EU station back to an EU station of QSOs that took place earlier in the contest (RTTY QTC may only be exchanged between continents). A QTC contains the time, call sign, and QSO number of the station being reported (e.g. 1307/DL1AA/346). A QSO may only be reported once and not back to the originating station. A maximum of 10 QTCs can be sent to a single station. The same station can be worked several times to complete this quota, but only the original QSO has QSO point value. Keep a list of QTCs sent. For example, QTC 3/7 would indicate that this is the third series of QTCs sent, and seven QSOs are reported. For more information: http://www.waedc.de/. Logs due by Sep 15 (CW), Oct 15 (Phone) or Dec 15 (RTTY) to [email protected] or to WAEDC Contest Manager, Bernhard Buettner DL6RAI, Schmidweg 17, 85609 Dornach, Germany. Maryland-DC QSO Party--CW/Phone, sponsored by the Antietam Radio Association, 1600Z Aug 13 - 0400Z Aug 14 and 1600Z-2359Z Aug 14. Frequencies (MHz): CW -- 3.643, 7.060, 14.060, 21.060, 28.035, PHONE - 1.895, 3.920, 7.230, 14.270, 21.370, 28.370, VHF/UHF - 50.150, 52.525, 144.15, 146.55, 146.580, 432.15, 446.000. Categories: Club, Mobile, Novice/Tech, QRP, and Standard. Work stations once per band/mode, portable/mobiles can be worked again in each county. Exchange: QTH and category. QSO Points: Club--10 pts, Mobile--5 pts, QRP or Novice/Tech--4 pts, CW or RTTY or ATV--3 pts, all others--1 pt. Highest single point value applies. Score: QSO points x MD counties + Baltimore City + DC. (MD-DC stations also count S/P/C) For more information: http://www.w3cwc.org/rules.html. Logs due Sept 15 to [email protected] (ASCII format) or Antietam Radio Association, PO Box 52, Hagerstown, MD 21741-0052 North American QSO Party--SSB, sponsored by the National Contest Journal, 1800Z Aug 20 - 0600Z Aug 21. Frequencies: 160 - 10-meters. Categories: SOAB and M2, 100 W power limit, operate a maximum of 10 hours (off times must be at least 30 min and M2 entries may operate the entire contest). Exchange: Name and S/P/C. Score: QSOs X States + Province + NA DXCC countries (count each once per band). For information: http://www.ncjweb.com/naqprules.php. Logs due 14 days after the contest via the Web form at http://www.ncjweb.com/naqplogsubmit.php, via email to [email protected] (there is a Web-to-Cabrillo converter link on the rules page) or Bruce Horn, WA7BNM, 4225 Farmdale Avenue, Studio City, CA 91604. SARTG WW RTTY Contest, sponsored by the Scandinavian Amateur Radio Teleprinter Group, 0000Z-0800Z and 1600Z-2400Z Aug 20 and 0800Z-1600Z Aug 21. Frequencies: 80-10 meters. Categories: SOAB (HP, LP <100W), SOSB, MS, SWL. Exchange: RST and serial number. QSO Points: own country--5 pts, different country on same continent--10 pts, diff. cont.--15 pts. Score: QSO points x DXCC entities + W/VE/VK/JA call districts. For more information: http://www.sartg.com/. Logs due Oct 10 to [email protected] or to SARTG Contest Manager, Ewe H�kansson, SM7BHM, Pilspetsv�gen 4, SE-291 66 Kristianstad, Sweden. Keymen's Club of Japan Contest--CW, sponsored by the Keymen's Club of Japan, 1200Z Aug 21-1200Z Aug 22. Frequencies: 160-6 meters (JA allocations on 160 are 1.810- 1.825, 1.908-1.912 MHz). Categories: SOAB, SOSB (JA only), SWL. Exchange: RST and JA prefecture/district or continent. QSO Points: 1 pt/QSO (JA count JA/JA--1 pt and JA/DX--5 pts). Score: QSO points x JA pref/dist from each band (JA also count continents). For more information: http://www.jarl.com/kcj. Logs due 30 Sep to [email protected] or Masayoshi Namba, JA1FCY, 1420-55 Kibara, Sambu-town, Sambu, Chiba 289-1212 Japan. New Jersey QSO Party--CW/Phone, sponsored by Englewood ARA, 2000Z Aug 20 - 0700Z Aug 21 and 1300Z Aug 21 - 0200Z Aug 22. Frequencies (MHz): 1.810, 3.535, 7.035, 14.035, 21.100, 28.100, SSB -- 3.950, 7.235, 14.285, 21.355, 28.400, VHF/UHF 50-50.5 and 144-146 MHz. Exchange: QSO number and S/P/C or NJ county. QSO points: 3 pts/QSO. Score: QSO points x NJ counties. NJ stations use NJ counties + states (except NJ) + provinces, max. 83. For more information: http://www.qsl.net/w2rj. Logs due Sep 17 to Englewood Amateur Radio Association, Inc., PO Box 528, Englewood, New Jersey 07631-0528. International Lighthouse and Lightship Weekend--CW/SSB/Digital, sponsored by ILLW from 0001Z Aug 20 - 2359Z Aug 21. Frequencies: CW - 21 kHz above band edge; SSB - 51 kHz above band edge. Exchange: Amateur Radio Lighthouse Society (ARLHS) number, if at a lighthouse or lightship. (see ARLHS contest, Aug 6 - 7). For more information: http://illw.net/index.html. Russian District Award Contest--CW/SSB, sponsored by the Tambov Award Group and Russian Contest Club from 1000Z - 2200Z 20 Aug. Frequencies: 160 - 10 meters. Categories: SOAB (HP, LP, QRP), SOAB-CW, SOAB-SSB, MS (with 10-min rule), SWL, Portable SO and MS - Russian only. Exchange: RS(T) + serial number or Russian District code. QSO Points: 10 pts/QSO. Total Score: QSO Points x DXCC entities + Russian districts, counted only once. For more information: http://rdaward.org/rda_contest1.htm. Logs due 30 days after the contest to [email protected] or Popov Sergey, P.O.Box 29, Tambov, 392000, Russia. VHF+ CONTESTS ARRL 10 GHz and Up Contest, 0600 local Aug 20 - 2000 local Aug 21. Categories:10 GHz only and 10 GHz and up. Exchange: Six-digit Maidenhead Locator. Distance Points equals distance in km between stations. QSO Points: 100 pts for each unique call worked. Score: Distance points + QSO points. For more information: http://www.arrl.org/contests/rules/2005/10-ghz.html. Logs due Oct 18 to [email protected] or ARRL Contest Branch, 225 Main St., Newington, CT, 06111, USA. NEWS AND PRESS RELEASES Stop the presses - we have arrived! On page 41 of the August issue of Wired magazine: Wired: Morse code Tired: texting Expired: shorthand (Thanks, Steve, KI0KY) There is a new Web-based version of ARRL contest Line Scores available to both ARRL members and non-Members. This listing is generated on-demand directly from the score data base, so any corrections are always included. (Previously, printed and downloaded line scores were only available in fixed form as part of the QST article PDF and were not updated.) The new line score format is presented as HTML, so a PDF reader program is not required. The font size is a tad larger than the QRPp 6-point used in the magazine, too. Get your copy of the line scores by clicking "Printable Line Scores" on the ARRL Contest Results Web page at http://www.arrl.org/contests/results/. This format is available for ARRL contests with an on-line database, beginning with the 2001 ARRL November CW Sweepstakes. (Thanks, Dan N1ND) At the recent ARRL board meeting, a resolution was passed to create a new VHF/UHF Advisory Committee. This follows the two-year effort by a VHF/UHF ad hoc committee to address increasing participation in VHF+ contests. The board recognizes "VHF/UHF contesting issues are markedly different than HF contesting issues due to the unique aspects of VHF and UHF propagation and the impact of geography and population-density differences." This should lead to more recognition and publicity for VHF+ contests. Note that a new committee has not yet been formed, but that should come to pass relatively soon. If you have thoughts on the issue, contact your ARRL Director. The full story and resolution are available at http://www.arrl.org/arrlletter/05/0722. Speaking of VHF, experimental radio licenses have been issued as of 1 August for restricted amateur radio usage of the 50 MHz band for the first time in Hungary for 65 stations. The licenses are valid until 30 Aug. The aim of the experiment is to study whether amateur radio usage of the 50 MHz band on a secondary basis causes interference in the reception of broadcast stations. The frequency range permitted for the experiment is 50.0500 - 50.5000 MHz for all operating modes, including FM and digital modes. Maximum effective radiated power (ERP) however is limited to 5 Watts. For more information join the mailing list at http://www.hasix.org/mailman/listinfo/6m or send email to [email protected]. (Thanks, Team HA5HRK) Tabor Software (http://www.taborsoft.com/) has a deal for new users of the WinCAP Wizard 3 package, which includes GeoAlert and Beacon Time Wizard. Register the program during August or September and receive the approaching major upgrade free. Further, if you state that you saw this offer in the "Contester's Rate Sheet" there's a $15 discount. My goodness, the Rate Sheet hits the big time! (Thanks, Jim KU5S) Doc W3GAD reminds me to mention the Mid-Atlantic VHF Conference on 24 September. The organizers have a lot of interesting presentations scheduled, including Nobel laureate K1JT speaking on EME and HS Meteor using the JT software packages. The conference also coincides with the annual Hamarama hamfest, so it sounds like a fun-filled weekend, no matter what your tastes. You can get all of the information and registration forms at http://members.ij.net/packrats/Hamarama/Hama_05.html#Anchor-Mid-Atlantic-49575. On the West Coast, VHF+ operators will enjoy the Pacific Northwest VHF Conference in Seaside, OR from Sep 30 - Oct 2. Sponsored by the Pacific NW VHF Society, this annual event features a full slate of presentations, a swap meet, and the great Seaside ocean air at one of the nicest resorts on the Oregon coast. You can find out more at http://www.pnwvhfs.org/. A couple months ago K1TTT was trying to figure out what to do with a couple of BIG insulators. He has apparently figured it out because BIG things are under way - so BIG that they now have their own Web site: http://www.berkshireinsulatorgallery.org/ (Thanks, Dave K1TTT) At the time the program "Tuning In To the World" about ham radio made the rounds on NPR, I didn't hear much about it. Thanks to astute reader Lynn N7CFO, you can now listen to the program in its entirety at http://www.theconnection.org/shows/2005/07/20050729_b_main.asp. The show features some fairly balanced and interesting conversation, some well-known calls appear in the form of CW audio at the beginning, and the call-in participants are knowledgeable and articulate. This makes for a pleasant listen! I was reading the Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.org/) one day and discovered that the Eniac was first powered up at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds on July 29, 1947. A modern keyer chip has more processing power! Read all about it at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ENIAC. Dave KM3T spotted on http://www.wifiworldrecord.com/ a new Wi-Fi distance record of 124.9 miles set by a team of amateurs; KG4NVK, N8MX, KC8RKO, and KC8OIO. A follow-op discussion ensued on Slashdot (http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/01/1013218). Pretty interesting stuff as microwave data links become consumer electronics! Roger K7NTW asked for recommendations of math-related books that don't require advanced degrees to enjoy. Some of my personal favorites include books about some of the "magic numbers" of math. Here's a few: - "The Golden Ratio : The Story of PHI, the World's Most Astonishing Number" by Mario Livio - "e: The Story of a Number" by Eli Maor - "Imagining Numbers: (particularly the square root of minus fifteen)" by Barry Mazur - "Pi: A Biography of the World's Most Mysterious Number" by Alfred S Posamentier - "The Nothing That Is: A Natural History of Zero" by Robert Kaplan Warning - this is a slippery slope and can lead to many pleasant hours of reading and neglecting those antenna chores. IOTA Contest Manager Don G3XTT ([email protected]) requests feedback on the log submission process. He reminds us that using a word processor rather than a text editor to manually edit logs may not result in a standard Cabrillo file. Use a plain text editor such as the Windows accessory Notepad to check your log. In addition, you may also submit JPEG files via Web entry of up to 500 kbytes for the IOTA contest Web page. Complete information is available at http://www.contesting.co.uk/hfcc/iota.shtml. Scott Adams, the creator of the cartoon strip "Dilbert," is interviewed in the print edition of EE Times for July 25. You can read the interview in the online version of the newsletter, but you have to register - http://www.eetimes.com/print. (Thanks, Wayne KH6WZ) Some Portuguese from a different source this time, the Radio Amateur Conversation Guide written by OH2BR and OH2BAD and offered free to the ham radio community. You can download your copy in PDF format at http://www.k8zt.com/racg/racg.html. Calling CQ - CQ twenty metres, this is N0AX calling CQ and standing by. - CQ vinte metros, esta e N0AX que chamou geral e passa a escuta. Some QSO elements - Thanks for the call. - Obrigado pela chamada. - My QTH [location] is Seattle. - Meu QTH [minha localizaqao] e Brasilia. - The input [output] power of the transmitter is 1 kilowatt. - A potencia de entrada [saida] do transmissor e 1 kilowatt. RESULTS AND RECORDS The California QSO Party is still weeks away, but in the mean time you can whet your appetite for all-time CQP records at http://www.cqp.org/results/Records/records_04.pdf Sunspots may be down but CA stations on-the-air for CQP are up. (Thanks, Marc W6ZZZ) Congratulations to the MI QSO Party committee for getting the final results out in only three months! (http://www.miqp.org/) New for 2005 in the on-line results is that a printable version of the results is available in PDF format. The Excel spreadsheet that was used to categorize and rank the scores can also be downloaded. (Thanks, Dave K8CC) The half-hour NCCC Sprint Thursday night practices are really attracting some interest. Check out the results of a recent contest at http://lists.contesting.com/_3830/2005-07/msg00813.html. (Thanks, Marc W6ZZZ) Results for the Nebraska QSO Party are now available at http://www.qsl.net/hdxa. (Thanks, Steve N0WY) TECHNICAL About a year ago Carl K9LA wrote a short article titled Propagation Planning for DXpeditions. It discussed six areas to help with propagation issues on your DXpedition. This document is available at http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/pdf/propplan.pdf. Now he has written a short article titled Propagation Planning for Contests. It goes one step farther, and outlines a short process using VOACAP to come up with a band plan for those contest categories requiring a decision as to what band to be on at any given time. It takes advantage of the inherent statistical nature of propagation predictions, and it is available at http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/pdf/propcontest.pdf. Gene AD3F suggests that this would be "an opportune time to remind all about Mark N1LO's great tome on antenna and tower references - http://www.qsl.net/n1lo/towers.txt . It's probably as close to anything as you'll come to a real textbook on the subjects of tower design, installation and maintenance. It's a large text file so it will take a while to download on all but the fastest of connections." If you'd like to be able to just send CW from your keyboard without firing up a whole logging program, CW Type is just such a program. It can key the radio via either a serial or parallel interface and can send from the keyboard or a paddle plugged into the parallel port. Hank K8DD has checked it out on Windows XP and the price is right - free! CW Type is available from DXsoft at http://www.dxsoft.com/en/products/cwtype/. Bob W9YA has a novel method of storing components in the workshop. He uses business envelopes cut in half, which isn't so novel, but the method of acquisition is. "Find a political committee that is going out of business. They are formed all the time and seem to go out of business right after an election of some sort. Ask for their unused printed envelopes. This will generally net you several thousand." With EME in reach of more hams than ever, interest is waxing in things lunar. Tree N6TR recently found out some interesting things about the visibility of the moon from near the earth's poles. "At the poles, it is possible to go through almost a whole year and never see a full moon -- if the half of the month you can see it in doesn't overlap with the full moon." Also, lunar retrograde motion adds a complicating factor to the whole lunar tracking problem. Why? Because the moon's orbit is hardly circular as illustrated by the QuickTime movie at http://www.mesquiteisd.org/planet/moon.html. More information about lunar motion is available at http://www.synapses.co.uk/astro/moon1.html. Left your soldering iron on all night and now the tip is solidly oxidized? If wiping the tip on a wet, synthetic sponge following by flooding the tip with solder doesn't clean it up, a chemical cleaner may be required. Kester Tip Tinner is recommended by Mike K8LH. Stuart K5KVH has used "Sal Ammoniac" blocks which are available from craft stores with supplies for stained glass windowmakers. He notes that the fumes are "dreadful", so use in a well-ventilated area. Alex KR1ST has published a construction article for an inexpensive 4-stack of 70cm halo antennas. It's posted on his Web site at http://www.kr1st.com/70cmstack.htm. The article contains detailed instructions on how to build the antenna with diagrams and pictures. CONVERSATION Does This Make Ham Radio "Better"? In preparing a presentation for the Pacific NW DX Convention on new ways of visualizing radio information, I felt that it was important to evaluate the ideas for their possible effect on ham radio. After all, if new technology, techniques, or activities don't make ham radio "better", then why implement them? The implied part of that question is that we actually know what "better" is. The quick reply is usually, "Well, of course I know!" But when pressed, it can be difficult to say exactly where the Good Arrow points. A legalistic definition would be to point to the FCC's Part 97.1 - the Basis and Purpose for the Amateur Service, paraphrased here as: - Voluntary communications, particularly emergency communications - Advancement of the radio art - Advancing skills in the communications and technical phases of the (radio) art - Expansion of trained operators, technicians, and electronics experts - Enhance international goodwill Those are a little dry, so translating those principles into more personable statements in no particular order: - Increase understanding of the physical environment of radio - Improve an operator's efficiency, accuracy, and breadth of expertise - Encourage technical learning about communications systems - Develop new radio services and techniques - Create new opportunities for building and innovation These are pretty much where my particular Good Arrow points. I don't expect every possible change to ham radio to score a plus on every one of those five points, but if a change can't muster a little enthusiasm in any of those areas, then maybe it's not going in the direction of the Good Arrow. Conversely, the more goals a change promotes, the better the change may be. Some changes have uniformly good effects, but most will be of the "some steps forward, some steps backwards" variety. This leaves us to count the steps, weigh them, and decide whether there is a net benefit. Things get even more complicated when combinations of changes are occurring. Two rights might make a wrong! Then there is the fact of having thousands of humans all acting and reacting at once - that makes life genuinely interesting, doesn't it? When presented with such a rich and frothy brew of possibilities, it's usually easiest to just pull the covers over one's head and reject them all. Better the devil you know than the devil you don't. If it's not broke, don't fix it. Of course, this conveniently ignores the fact that radio and radio operators are continually changing, whether we embrace change or not. Undoubtedly, amateur radio is in a watershed period, just as it was in the years following World War II, a period of dramatic technical change and a rapid change in the population of amateurs. While there was a lot of complaining, that upheaval seems to have turned out OK. Today, the rapidly hybridizing Internet-Radio combination, changing license requirements, and accelerating technical evolution of radio will probably transform ham radio to the same degree as before and after WWII. Radio in 1960 looked an awful lot different to an amateur that got started in the 1930's - a situation in which many of us find ourselves today. As you browse the Web, read the magazines, and kick things around with your friends, you'll encounter divisive and difficult topics such as CW testing, spotting networks, digital radios, bandwidth and band plans, and on and on. Even in such an environment, where it's difficult to know the long-term benefits and costs of changes, one can still apply Good Arrow measuring sticks and support the aspects of change that line up closest. Then it becomes a question of whether you choose to dwell on features that measure up or the ones that don't. Ham radio is molting - all we have to do now is decide which parts will make up the new lobster and which parts the old shell. 73, Ward N0AX ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The Contester's Rate Sheet wishes to acknowledge information from the following sources: WA7BNM's Contest Calendar Web page - http://www.hornucopia.com/contestcal ARRL Contest page - http://www.arrl.org/contests SM3CER's Web site - http://www.sk3bg.se/contest
