5. IARU REGION 1 50MHz / 145MHz / UHF and MICROWAVES CONTESTS 5.1. ... currently four official IARU Region 1 contests are organised annually : i The 50 MHz contest during the third weekend of June. i The VHF contest during the first weekend of September - only on 145 MHz; i The UHF/Microwaves contest during the first weekend of October on 435 MHz and higher bands; i The ATV contest during the second weekend of September; Member societies of IARU Region 1 organise and judge the results of the above contests. The procedures for the organisation of the 50MHz, 145MHz and UHF/Microwaves contests are set out in chapter 5.2. 5.2 PROCEDURE FOR ORGANISING IARU REGION 1 50MHz/145MHz/UHF/MICROWAVE CONTESTS A) In January of each year the Chairman of the VHF/UHF/Microwaves Committee shall send a letter to the societies organising the IARU Region 1 VHF, UHF/Microwaves, 50 MHz and ATV contests in that year, containing an up-to-date copy of the rules for these contests. B) After receipt the organising societies shall distribute these rules (e.g. in the form of a printed booklet) together with an invitation to participate in the contests to all IARU Region 1 member societies. The invitation shall contain details on where to send the logs etc. This shall be done before the end of March of that year. C) Not later than the seventh Sunday after the contest the national VHF Manager or properly nominated Contest Committee shall forward to the society organising the contest one copy of each entry, after having examined the logs and after having certified those to be acceptable to the best of their knowledge. Stations operating temporarily outside their ihome-countryî are for the purpose of the contest participating as stations in the country where they operate and their logs must to be submitted to the VHF-Manager/Contest Committee of that country. Logs sent to the contest committee of their home country shall not be submitted to the adjudicating society! D) In order to obtain the most important results as quickly as possible the following checking procedure shall be followed: The VHF Manager or properly nominated Contest Committee in each country shall verify the details of each participating station (callsign, locator, band, section, having obeyed the rules...) Upon completion, the logs shall be sent to the organising society, separated in sections (bands, where applicable). E) Two weeks shall be allowed for transit to the organising society and thus all national contributions should be in by the ninth Sunday after the contest weekend. F) The organising society shall allow a margin of three weeks for possible postal delays and shall declare the entry closed on the twelfth Sunday after the contest weekend. Entries received after this date shall be returned to sender or -if agreed by the sender by mail or fax- be destroyed. G) The organising society shall publish the results based on the claimed scores not later than thirteenth Sunday after the contest on their web site. The organising society will perform full computer/automatic cross check on all the received logs and will publish the final results not later than fourteenth Sunday after the contest on their web site. The list of results should include at least the following data: call sign, Locator, score, number of QSOs, number of deleted QSOs, percentage of deleted points, ODX call sign, ODX Locator and ODX QRB. The organising society shall judge the contest and publish the official results on their web site and send the results to the Webmaster of the IARU Region I web site for publication. These results shall also be sent in electronic format to all VHF Managers and/or Contest Committees of Societies who sent logs and also to the Chairman of Region 1 VHF/UHF/Microwave Committee, not later than two months after the date mentioned in F. above (e.g. not later five months after the contest took place). The entrants scoring highest in each section will be awarded the IARU REGION 1 CERTIFICATE. The organising society will receive the certificates from the chairman of the VHF/UHF/Microwaves committee (signed by the R1 secretary ) and will send those after having filled in the relevant data and after signature to the winners in each section. Optionally certificates for all participants may be provided for distribution by national societies. See also chapter 13. H) All QSOs including unique QSOs shall count for points even if they only appear in the log of one contest entrant. 5.3 RULES IARU REGION 1 50 MHz, 145 MHz AND UHF/MICROWAVES CONTESTS 5.3.1 Eligible entrants All licensed radio amateurs in Region 1 may participate in the contest. Multiple operator entries will be accepted, provided only one callsign per band is used during the contest . When such stations use a different call sign on each band, the logs of that Multioperator entry shall for each band clearly bear an indication of the group. This will preferably be one of the call signs used, but a group name may be used instead. All stations belonging to such a group shall operate from the same location (see section 5.3.3 ) The contestants must operate within the letter and spirit of the contest and at no greater power than permitted in the ordinary licenses of their country. Stations operating under special high power licenses do so "hors concours" and cannot be placed in the contest proper. Stations operating temporarily outside their ihome-countryî are for the purpose of the contest participating as stations in the country where they operate and their logs must be submitted to the VHF Manager/Contest Committee of that country. Logs sent to the Contest Committee of their home country shall not be submitted to the adjudicating society. 5.3.2 Contest sections The contests shall comprise the following sections for each band from 50 MHz to 10 GHz and for Millimeter group (the combined group of amateur bands above 10 GHz) : i Section SINGLE - Stations operated by a single operator, with no assistance during the contest. i Section MULTI - All other entrants 5.3.3 Operating No more than one transmitter per band may be in use at any one time. A participating station must operate from the same location throughout the event. All the equipment of the station (transmitters, receivers and antennas, etc) must be located within a single circle of no greater than 500 metres diameter. OPERATOR may reside outside the stationís area ("remote station"), connected to the station via a "remote control terminal". In such a case, the Locator for the contest is the Locator of the station's position. An operator may only operate one single station, regardless if it is locally or remotely operated, during the same event. 5.3.4 Date of contests i The 50 MHz contest will begin on the third Saturday of June. i The 145 MHz contest shall start on the first Saturday of September. i The UHF/Microwave contest will start on the first Saturday of October. 5.3.5 Duration of contests The contest will commence at 1400 hours UTC on the Saturday and end at 1400 hours UTC on the Sunday. 5.3.6 Contacts Each station may only be worked once per band, whether it is fixed, portable or mobile. If a station is worked again during the same contest on the same band, only one contact may count for points, but any duplicate contacts should be logged without claim for points and clearly marked as duplicates. Contacts made via active repeaters do not count for points. 5.3.7 Type of emission Contacts may be made in A1A, J3E or F3E(G3E). 5.3.8 Contest exchanges Code numbers exchanged during each contact shall consist of the RS or RST report, followed by a serial number commencing with 001 for the first contact on each band and increasing by one for each successive contact on that band. This exchange must immediately be followed by the complete Locator of the sending station (examples : 59003 JO20DB or 579123 IN55CC). Note: for the "T" part of the report, see chapter 8.6.1 5.3.9 Scoring For the amateur bands up to 10 GHz inclusive, points will be scored on the basis of one point per kilometre, i.e. the calculated distance in kilometres will be truncated to an integer value and 1 km will be added. The centre of each locator square is used for distance calculations. In case that only a 4-character locator has been received (50 MHz), the contact is invalid. In order to make contest scores comparable, for the conversion from degrees to kilometres a factor of 111.2 should be used when calculating distances with the aid of the spherical geometry equation (Noordwijkerhout, 1987). For the combined higher bands (Millimeter group) the score will be the sum of the points scored on each of the bands, using the following multiplication factors for the number of kilometres scored on each band : 24 GHz 1 x 47 GHz 2 x 75/80 GHz 3 x 120 GHz 5 x 145 GHz 6 x 245 GHz 10 x 5.3.10 Entries The entries must be set out in digital/electronic form fulfilling the requirements under rule 5.3.13. Logs must be sent to the national VHF Manager or the national Contest Committee not later than the second Monday following the contest weekend. Late entries will not be accepted. The submission of the logs implies that the entrant accepts the contest rules. 5.3.11 Judging of entries The final judging of the entries shall be the responsibility of the organising society, whose decision shall be final. Entrants deliberately contravening any of these rules or flagrantly disregarding the IARU Region 1 bandplans shall be disqualified. Each VHF Manager and/or national Contest Committee shall be responsible for monitoring during contests. Additional monitoring stations may be appointed but these stations may not take part in the contest. The national VHF Manager/Contest Committee is responsible for disqualification based upon the results of monitoring. The claimed contact shall be disqualified for any error in the information logged by the station. Any error in the information logged by a station shall result in the loss by the receiving station of all points for that contact. 5.3.12 Awards i Section winners: Certificates will be issued by the organising society to the winners in the two sections on each band up to 10 GHz and for the Millimeter group. i Overall winners for UHF/Microwave contest: For each section an overall winner of the IARU Region 1 UHF/Microwaves contest will be declared. For this competition the scores of the entrants on the following bands will be combined, using an adaptive multiplier system: 435 MHz 1.3 GHz 2.4 GHz 5.7 GHz 10 GHz Millimeter group The multipliers to be used for the determination of the overall scores in each section are found as follows: The multiplier is equal to the ratio between the highest number of points scored by any participating station on the 435 MHz band for that section and the highest number of points scored by any participating station on the band for that section for which the multiplier is being determined. For the millimeter group the scores as determined according to rule 5.3.9 are used for the determination of this group's multiplier. As the 3.4 GHz band is not yet available in all countries within Region 1, the 3.4 GHz results will not be taken into account when determining the overall winners of the sections in the October IARU Region 1 UHF/Microwaves contest (Noordwijkerhout 1987 ) 5.3.13 Logs The logs shall be in the format defined in Section 5.9 5.4 LIST OF MEMBER SOCIETIES CHARGED WITH ORGANISING THE IARU REGION 1 145 MHz AND UHF/MICROWAVES CONTESTS 2009 Sept REF 2009 Oct PZK 2010 Sept SARA 2010 Oct ZRS 5.6 LIST OF MEMBER SOCIETIES CHARGED WITH ORGANISING THE IARU REGION 1 50 MHz CONTEST 2008 ZRS 2009 PZK 2010 UBA