Greetings Utilizers of the Night Forces, In 4 weeks the Stew Perry TopBand DX Challenge will be upon us. For Amateur Radio Operators who are not familiar with this event it is a 24 hour Morse Code test on 160M only, with the contest participants exchanging their calls and Maidenhead Grid 4 digit locators for 14 hours. For Amateur Radio Operators who are familiar with this event... it is still the same thing. The Boring Amateur Radio Club sponsors this contest which utilizes a distance mnemonic to reward more points for a far away contact than for a not so far away contact. We have official rules and information about this Great Contest which live at: http://jzap.com/k7rat/stew.html This web site is currently hosed and non-functional presumably related to the massive amounts of RF thrown into the sky by the recently concluded CQWW-SSB and the Sweepstakeses. Our cracker-jack team of web site restorers will soon resuscitate the site so that you may study for yourselves the event and its subtleties. The plaque program for The Stew Perry TopBand Extravaganza is unique in that The Boring Amateur Radio Club does not decide what performances should be rewarded with wood. The radio combatants do that by sponsoring categories that they individually feel are important. These Stalwarts choose the accomplishment that they want rewarded, send or Paypal $55 to the Club and then the fight is on for that category. Listed below are the Radio Operators already in for 2011:
Call Category KL7RA "Top Number of QSOs" North Pole Contest Club "Being Cogitated" TF4M "Longest DX" (2 stations, each get 1 plaque) W0UCE " Top Score USA/S-O/LP/single wire for Tx & Rx" KR2Q "Golden Log" (Top # of QSOs w/o a bust) VK6VZ "Top Score N. Hemisphere station working S. Hemisphere stations" (Winner gets official Flying Doctors of VK Baseball hat rather than plaque) If you are an individual Sponsor then the community will recognize and appreciate your efforts to stimulate the competition. If you are a business then the community should swarm your website and phones to buy all of your wares to reward you for the support! An email to me inquiring about a particular category should get a reasonably swift response and a place on this list of donors. All categories will be screened for appropriateness by the Boring Amateur Radio Club Committee on Smut Detection whose decisions are usually final. The plaques for the 2010 Stew Fray are all ready to be taken to the Postal Authorities so they should be arriving at the winners' abodes soon. The Boring Amateur Radio Club understands that ol' Sol has brought life to 10M and even some 6M propagation. Ancient dogma suggests that these conditions hurt 160M but we know better. These conditions test the TopBand contestors and direct them to even better technology and operating in order to make the TopBand QSOs. We at the Club also understand that the 16th running of The Stew Perry TopBand Challenge is the week before Chistmas during the Holiday season. What better way to cope with the frenzy and panic that can permeate those times than to sit down and work the world on TopBand for a while? Start doing good deeds now to fill up the favor bank so that you can withdraw the favored time to play in The Stew Perry. See You in The Stew! 73 and I remain, Lew W7EW The Boring Amateur Radio Club Plaquerer w7ew(at)arrl(dot)net _______________________________________________ UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK