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January 01, 2008:
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Contest Rules

General ATV Contest Rules

PREAMBLE: - The Main object of an Amateur Television Contest is to promote ATV activity. Anyone interested in ATV whether they are members of The British Amateur Television Club or not, are welcome to take Part.

1) ELIGIBILITY: -Contests are open to all licensed radio amateurs who are equipped to transmit and receive pictures by Fast Scan. Non-transmitting amateurs or SWL can also take Part with their own section.

2) DATES AND TIMES: -Dates and time are also published in CQ-TV (only available to BATC members), BATC web site, other amateur radio periodicals from time to time and on application to the BATC Contest Manager.

3) LOCATION: - Operation must be within the terms of your licence, from either the main station as listed in the current RSGB Call book known as a FIXED station or a PORTABLE station. A portable station, cannot be located in a permanent building, does not support its antennas from a permanent structure and does not power its equipment from the mains electricity supply. Please get the permission of the landowner.

4) FREQUENCIES: - Within the allocated segments of the 70cm, 24cm, 13cm, 9cm, 6cm, 3cm and 1.5cm bands for FSTV. Operation via repeaters does not constitute a valid contest contact.

5) POWER: - Output power must not exceed that set out in the terms of your licence.

6) EXCHANGE: - CALL SIGN and a FOUR-FIGURE code number must be conveyed via video. Confirmation of reception is by transmitting back THE SUM of the code numbers on the talk-back channel, NOT THE ACTUAL TRANSMITTED NUMBER. Please note all FOUR digits in the contest number should be different and not consecutive. The numbers must be different for each band, e.g. these numbers are OK:- 2741, 4820, etc., these are not:- 1111, 1138, 1381, 1234 etc.

7) SCORE: - 70cm 1 point per km, 24cm 2 points per km and for contacts on higher bands 5 points per km. One way. Multiply by 2 for a two way contact. Note your computer program should give 6371.290982 km as the earth’s radius and 111.2036 km for each degree change in latitude before rounding off to the nearest km. For scoring purposes all valid contacts shall be deemed to have taken place over a distance of at least 5 Km, even if the two stations in contact have the same or adjacent locators.

8) LOGS: - Separate combined log/cover sheet should be submitted for each band. Each sheet should indicate:- Call sign of station entering contest, Contest name, Band, TX Power, Aerial etc., Code number used, Your locator, Total number of QSOs and best DX etc., Name and address of 1st operator, names and call signs of operators and the signed declaration. For each contact the date/time, Station Worked, Report/serial number sent, Report/Serial number received, Locator of other station, Code number received, km and points claimed. Each band should begin with the serial number 001. No station to be worked more than once on any band. Please mark dupes. You could lose points for gross errors, however the contest manager will correct minor errors of scoring and distance calculation. Logs must be posted by the third Monday after the contest.

9) AWARDS: - Certificates will be issued to each individual band winner and runner up together with the overall leading station.

10) RECEIVE ONLY SECTION: - Send log sheet or a copy of it giving your Call sign / BRS No. and name and address, Band, Date/Time in GMT., Call sign of station see, ‘P’ report on signals seen, Code number seen, Locator of receiving and DX station if possible. The contest manager will work out your locator if you send him your National Grid Reference (two letters and six figures please) UK only or Lat./Long. in degrees. The locator of the DX station will if possible be abstracted from other logs received. Scoring is 1 point per km.

11) DISPUTES: - The decision of the contest manager and/or the BATC Committee is final.

12) SPIRIT OF THE CONTEST: - DON’T LEAVE YOUR VIDEO TX ON ANY LONGER THAN NECESSARY on 70cm. There is only a limited space for a TV transmission. Other stations might be trying to resolve a weak signal. MOVE OFF THE ATV CALLING FREQUENCY 144.750 MHZ. AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. Check before you land on a frequency that it is not in use. Try using SSB (144.525 MHz) if you can’t find a free FM channel for talk-back. Contests mean activity and good fun, join in, and even if you only work one or two stations please send a log in.

13) DECLARATION OF INTEREST: - Although acting as contest manager, I reserve the right to take part.

14) COMPUTER LOGS: -Computer logs are quite acceptable provided they have all the information listed above under LOGS. Hard copy or a 3.5” floppy are OK, however a declaration like the one on the bottom of the cover sheet must be signed. The file should be in Word or Excel format.

15) CONTACT ADDRESS:- For paper contest logs and cover sheets please send an SAE to:- Wg Cdr D G Crump, Mailbox Number ACT, BFPO 63, London. Entries and logs should also be submitted to this address. Alternatively, Logs and cover sheets can be downloaded from the web site, and submitted by e-mail to Contests@batc.org.uk. Please make sure that you get an acknowledgement from the Contest Manager - e-mails do go astray!

ATV REPEATER CONTEST RULES

Contest sections

The contest will comprise two sections on each UHF/Microwave band on which ATV transmissions are authorized:

Section 1 - Transmitting:

This section is entered by all those who use transmitting equipment to send pictures for the purpose of establishing two-way vision communication, or those transmitting any other mode for the purpose of establishing one-way vision communication with a transmitting television station.

Section 2 - Receiving:

This section is entered by all those who use receive-only television equipment and do not attempt to communicate in any way with other participating television stations in order to influence their operations.

Duration of contest

The contest commences at 1800 UTC on the Saturday and ends at 1200 UTC on the Sunday.

Contacts

For contest scoring purposes a participating station may be worked or viewed only once through each repeater.

Contest exchanges

The following information shall be exchanged during a contact:

1. A Code number

2. Call sign (also in video)

3. Optional:

For the vision report the codes P0 to P5 shall be used:

The report (e.g. P4) is followed by the suffix 'C' if the transmission is received in colour.

Scoring

Section 1:

A two-way exchange of the four-digit code group by vision shall score:

If only one station received the four-digit code group, the scores for both stations shall be reduced by 50%.

Section 2:

Reception of the four-digit code group by vision shall score:

Notes

i) For scoring purposes all valid contacts shall be deemed to have taken place over a distance of at least 5 kilometres, even if the two stations in contact have the same or adjacent IARU Locators.

ii) 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 greater than the 5 kilometres mentioned under i) with the aid of the spherical geometry equation (Noordwijkerhout, 1987).

Entries

Entries should be submitted by e-mail or posted to the Contest Manager no later than the third Monday following the contest weekend. Late entries will not be accepted. The submission of the logs implies that the entrant accepts the contest rules.

Logs should be submitted by post to: Wg Cdr D G Crump, Mailbox Number ACT, BFPO 63, London, or by e-mail to: contests@batc.org.uk. Please make sure you get an acknowledgement, as e-mails do go astray.

Judging of entries

The judging of the entries shall be the responsibility of the Contest Manager, whose decision shall be final. Entrants deliberately contravening any of these rules or flagrantly disregarding the IARU Region I bandplans shall be disqualified. Minor errors may result in loss of points.

The claimed contact will be disqualified for an obviously wrongly stated Locator, callsign, codenumber, or a time error of more than 10 minutes.

Logsheets

The logsheets used shall show the following columns in the order named:

A standard cover sheet, containing the following information should be submitted:

A suitable Excel Spreadsheet can be found on the BATC WebSite.

Click here to download the Repeater contest rules as a Word document.