Contest Idea Proposal:

2020 NARA Repeater Contest

Contest coincides with ARRL Field Day but is not part of the ARRL Field Day. ARRL Field Day logs cannot contain repeater contacts. This NARA Repeater Contest only allows contacts made through repeaters, with emphasis on NARA repeaters.

Open to members and non-members of NARA or "club". No purchase necessary. Must be a licensed amateur radio operator to participate. To register and participate, send an email to admin@na1ra.org with "Contest" and your Call Sign in the subject line. We will send you a unique link to your own log entry form before the start of the contest, or soon as possible. Contacts can be logged online through your browser, without the need to install software.

Bookmark or make a shortcut to the URL you are sent, you can log contacts on your phone using that form as well. If you leave date and time blank, the automatic timestamp of form submission will be used for validation during scoring. Submit the form once for each contact. Internet connection is required for form submission. Sample form can be seen here feel free to submit data through this form for testing purposes. You will also be provided with a link to the spreadsheet being populated by your log form so you can review your log, a Google account is not required to view this spreadsheet representation of your log. You can also view your score estimate by viewing the second tab of this sheet. After each contact entry submission you will have the opportunity to edit, through the form interface, only that last entry you just submitted. If you wish to be be able to edit past entries in your log you will need a Google account to request edit permission for that spreadsheet, however this is not encouraged. See "Logging without using the online form" if you want more editing control over your log, or need to log without an internet connection.

Make as many contacts as possible, using as many of the club's repeaters as possible to score more points. A higher variety of Input Machines on both Your Side and the Their Side increase your score.

The set of possible Input Machines are:

• 70cm Washington
• 70cm Woodbury
• 2m New Milford
• 6m Warren
• EchoLink
• DMR - New Milford
• DMR - Other

"DMR-Other" includes other town's DMR sites as well as personal DMR "hotspots"

Score will be calculated as follows

Total Score = (# of Unique Call Signs in Log) * (# of Unique Input Machines on Your side of contact) * (# of Unique Input Machines on Their side of contact)

You can work the same Call Sign on multiple machines to improve machine multipliers, but it wont increase Call Sign multiplier.

So an example strategy would be to pair up with another operator and run through all your radios, testing skills and functions across the board to max out the last two multipliers(X*7*7), then spend the rest of the time focused on accumulating unique Call Signs in your log(X).

Unique Call Signs of non-members count as well, so try to convince listeners to join in and speak up! If you make a contact with a non-member you can ask them request a log form as well so they can report your contact, and it won't get busted. Just send them to the club website or have them email admin@na1ra.org

A "busted contact" is a contact that does not show up in another operator's submitted log.

This contest is intended to focus on NARA repeaters, a contact that happens to not to use any NARA equipment such as EchoLink<->EchoLink or DMR-Other <-> DMR-Other will NOT be counted for scoring, and the contact will be deleted.

Classes

If you only have 70cm Washington, 70cm Woodbury, or 2m New Milford machines under "Your Input Machines", you will be scored in the "Dual-Bander" class. A Dual-Bander can still make contacts with others through the linked network if they are using other machines such as 6m or Echolink to improve their score. example, a Dual-Bander can only have a maximum of X*3*5 for their last two multipliers.

All others will be scored in the "Unlimited" class.

You do not need to declare a class at time of registration or even during logging. It will be done for you at time of scoring.

Awards

All award certificates will be digital files.

Best in Class

Highest score in each class will receive a NARA Repeater Contest Best in Class award certificate.

Worked-All-Members Special Award

If all members of NARA appear in your log, you will receive a digital NARA WAM award certificate.

"All members" for the purpose of this award will be a list of any current club member who registers for this contest before the contest start. This list of member's call signs will be posted on this page at the start of the contest for all participants to refer to. By registering for this contest, a club member is agreeing to have their call sign published in this list. If a club member wants to participate in the contest, but not be included in this list, just say so in your registration email, or simply register after the start of the contest. The list will not be edited after the start of the contest. If a member registers to participate, but fails to log any contacts by the submission deadline, their call sign will be removed from the list for scoring purposes.

777 Special Award

If your log contains at least 7 unique Call Signs, all 7 unique Input Machines on Your side, and all 7 unique Input Machines on Their side, you will receive the 777 award certificate!

Duration

TBD

In order to provide opportunity to reach as many members as possible, and avoid congestion on the repeaters, the contest is to start the weekend before Field Day and will run through Field Day weekend. The contest will run continuously between the start time and the end time without pause.

The contest will start at noon on Friday June 19, and will end at noon on Monday June 29. All entries must be submitted by the end of the day Tuesday, June 30 so that final scores will be available for the club meeting July 6. All score results will be posted on this page at that time.

Logging without using the online form

Using the online form will be the easiest to record and score, but If you want to submit a spreadsheet log file, you can download the empty spreadsheet from the link you will be emailed. Use whatever spreadsheet software you are comfortable with. No need to convert to csv, just use xlsx for Excel or ods for Libre/OpenOffice. Add your data, save, and email file back to admin@na1ra.org by the end of the day Tuesday, June 30. You do not need to fill out the timestamp column just complete the date and time columns and match the formatting that the sample spreadsheet uses. Templates for other logging software not available at this time.