Last night was the annual Westlakes Cup. A 1 hour sprint type contest on 80m for VK operators. It has some quirky rules that really need to be read before participating. I have entered the Cup a couple of times before with mixed results. Among the rules is the feature of a call back at the end of the sprint to tally scores and get an idea of how everyone went.
One of the stranger features of the Westlakes Cup is the need for participants to move 5 kHz after calling for a contact. The exact wording is;
“After a contact is made and reports exchanged, the station that had called “CQ” must
QSY at least 5kHz before calling again. There will be no sitting on a frequency and
working a “pile up.””
What makes this interesting is the application of this rule when a station that is active in the contest politely breaks into a non-contest net and starts to work the stations on the net. Can the contest station work only one station and then needs to QSY, or can they work the entire net and then leave? After all the contest station didn’t call “CQ” so would the QSY rule apply?
In past this issue hasn’t really mattered because there were lots of stations to chase. In 2007 there were about 26 stations involved while last night I think there was only 13 stations actively working the contest. I scored a couple of extra stations simply by calling “CQ Westlakes – working any station” to try and pry any contact I could from the ether.
Another observation from last night was the lack of Foundation stations. My log shows none. And I didn’t hear any other stations working “F” calls anywhere either. Perhaps they have all upgraded.
I think the reason for the decrease in numbers is a lack of publicity. I couldn’t find anything about the 2011 Cup on the Westlakes web site and there had been nothing in the weekly WIA broadcasts.
It was mentioned in a full page write up in the September issue of the Wetslakes club newsletter but I got that only after emailling the club and asking for details of the Cup.
I don’t know why the event didn’t get the publicity it needs and I hope the club and others will promote the Cup well in the lead up to next year’s event as it is a unique event and I, for one, quite enjoy it.
Now, how did I go? I don’t know because I couldn’t find the call back at the end.
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