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General
Rules | Cabrillo
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General
Rules for RSGB HF Contests
1.
These rules apply to all RSGB HF Contests, except where superseded by
the specific Contest Rules.
2. UK
means England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Channel Islands and
Isle of Man.
3. Entrants
must abide by their licence conditions.
4. Contacts:
(a) A
contact consists of an exchange with incrementing serial number
commencing from 001 and acknowledgement of receipt of callsign and
contest data. Incomplete contacts must be logged with zero points
claimed. Points are not lost if a non-competing station does not send
appropriate information, but a report must be logged and any other
exchange sent by that station must be recorded. The full contest
exchange must be sent to all stations worked.
(b) One
contact only with the same station per band counts for points,
regardless of that stations operator or callsign. More than one contact
with the same operator using different callsigns may not be claimed.
Contacts with stations which have no other contest contacts may be
disallowed. Duplicate contacts must be logged, with zero points claimed.
(c) Cross-band
contacts do not score.
(d)
Contacts scheduled before the contest do not count for points.
Schedules may only be made during the contest.
(e)
Simultaneous transmissions on more than one frequency below 30MHz are
not permitted, but in multi-operator / assisted events use of VHF/UHF
to access the DX cluster is permitted. Access must be to the public
cluster network, private clusters are not permitted.
(f)
The active use (posting messages, arranging
skeds, self spotting etc)
of the DX Cluster and other spotting networks (including internet
facilities for example ON4KST) to assist an entry is not permitted.
(g) Proof
of contact may be required.
(h) For
contest purposes, /AM and /MM stations are treated as /M stations in
their own country. Other stations are regarded as being in the call
area / country indicated by their callsign as sent.
5. Portable stations
(a)
Entrants must operate from the same site for the whole contest.
(b)
Stations must not be located in a permanent building or shelter.
(c) No
permanent building or structure may be used as an aerial support (trees
are acceptable).
(d) Power
must be obtained solely from on-site batteries, portable generators or
solar cells, without use of mains.
(e) All
equipment, aerials and supports must be set up on site no more than 24
hours before the start of the contest. This does not apply to short
term storage of equipment on site.
(f) All
portable stations will still be required to sign /P when taking part in
any RSGB contest with a portable section even though new licence
regulations make the use of the /P suffix optional when operating
portable.
6. Entrants
(a)
All operators of UK stations must be RSGB
members except visiting amateurs, not normally resident in the UK. UK
stations may not use special (eg GB, GX etc) callsigns nor be /MM or
/AM.
(b) A
single-operator station is operated by one person, who receives no
assistance whatsoever from any other person in operating, log-keeping,
checking and so on, and who does not receive notification of callsign
information by packet, telnet, telephone or any other method
including skimmer and skimmer-like technologies.
(c)
Multi-operator entries are those not covered by 7(b). One operator must
act as Entrant and submit the entry.
(d)
All transmitters and receivers used by the entrant must be located
within a single 500-meter diameter circle or within the property limits
of the station address, whichever is greater. All antennas
used by the entrant must be physically connected by wires to the
transmitters and receivers used by the entrant. An entrant’s remote
station is determined by the physical location of the transmitters,
receivers, and antennas. Only one station may be used by the entrant
during the contest period. That means, for example, that an entrant may
not work himself by use of a second, remote, station nor may that
second station be used to aid the operation of the entrant's station.
7. Adjudication
(a) Errors
in sending / receiving are penalised by the loss of all points for the
QSO.
(b) Points
may be deducted or entries disqualified or excluded for any breach of
the rules or spirit of the contest. The decision of the RSGB is final.
8. Entries.
(a) Log
entries may be submitted by email, on 3.5in disk or on paper. Paper
entries are acceptable only if logging during the contest was not done
on computer. The adjudicator reserves the right to treat a paper entry
derived from a computer as a checklog. Unless specified otherwise in a
particular contests rules, the entry must be sent no more than 16 days
after the end of the contest. Log entries become the property of the
RSGB.
(b) The
preferred log format for computer entries is Cabrillo. Where a contest
exchange includes information not covered by the basic Cabrillo
definition, the contest specific Cabrillo format is defined on the RSGB
HFCC webpage www.rsgbhfcc.org Entrants unsure of what information is
required for a particular contest are encouraged to use software which
provides full support for RSGB contests, such as SD by EI5DI.
(c)
Computer entries must be named with the stations callsign and the
extension .log. Portable stations should use a hyphen, eg g3xyz-p.log.
For Cabrillo entries this is the only file that is required. For a
limited period other ASCII formats may be accepted and for these, in
addition to the log file a summary file (eg g3xyz-p.sum) must also be
submitted.
(d) The log entry robot http://www.rsgbcc.org/cgi-bin/hfenter.pl must be used for online entry to all RSGB HF contests unless indicated otherwise in the specific contest rules.
(e) Disk
and paper logs should be sent to RSGB G3UFY, 77 Bensham Manor Road,
Thornton Heath, Surrey CR7 7AF, England. Acknowledgement will be sent
if a stamped, addressed postcard or IRC is enclosed.
(f) Paper
logs (and any not in Cabrillo format) must ensure the following
information is shown for each contact: Time, Callsign worked,
RS(T)/serial sent, RS(T)/ serial received, other data (specific to the
contest), new bonus/multiplier, QSO points. Send a single log in time
sequence, not separate logs for each band.
(g) Paper
summary sheets should include the following declaration "I declare that
this station was operated in accordance with the rules and spirit of
the contest and within the conditions of my licence. I agree to the
data from this entry being entered into a computer for the purposes of
contest adjudication and production of statistics. I agree that the
decision of the Board of the RSGB shall be final in all cases of
dispute." Submission of an entry in Cabrillo or any other format
implies acceptance of the wording of this declaration.
(h) Ensure
that the section or category being entered is clearly shown in the
Cabrillo header or summary sheet. Entrants are encouraged to use
soapbox lines in the Cabrillo header to give information about the
equipment and antennas used as well as comments about the contest.
9. Awards.
Trophies as specified will be presented at the annual HF Convention and
will be held for a maximum period of one year for any particular annual
event. Certificates of Merit will be awarded to leading stations in
each category / band as appropriate.
Note: A
variety of contest logging programs can be used in RSGB contests. The
most popular is SD by EI5DI, and its the only one which supports all
the Society's contests and produces a correctly scored log. Full
details can be found on the website www.ei5di.com or by writing to
EI5DI, QTHR (e-mail: paul@ei5di.com )
If you use a different logging program you must take steps to ensure
that your entry is correctly formatted and that QSO points, bonuses and
multipliers are correctly shown for each contact.
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