Communications is a potentially life-saving skill we all need to practice, newbies as well as veterans.

The contest begins this Sunday, October 20. Start racking up points for some great prizes… the greatest of which will be your increased ability to communicate in an emergency. Contest rules are equally assessible to complete beginners and ham veterans.

Full guidelines in the Appendix of this newsletter. Please participate!

THE ST. MAXIMILIAN KOLBE* COMMUNICATIONS CONTEST

October 20th – November 3rd

*St. Maximilian Kolbe is the Patron Saint of Amateur Radio Operators

The First Annual St. Maximillian Kolbe National Communications Contest is from October 20th through November 3rd. ALL of CORAC is encouraged to participate, earn points, and win valuable prizes!

PRIZES & AWARDS

• ZOLEO Satellite Communicator; GMRS Radios; “High Power” CB radio; Cowboy hat blessed by Joseph Strickland
• Beautiful 17”x14” blessed wooden Icon of St. Maximilian Kolbe.
• The “Long Horn Award” for making the most contacts with Liberty Center Relay Station.
• The “Liberty Award” for giving the most encouragement to other CORACers in earning contest points.
• The “St. Maximilian Kolbe Communicator Award” for making the most effort in the contest.

CONTEST RULES

Contestants keep their own log of contest points claimed and must email their logs at the end of the contest to their regional coordinator.

Non-Ham Contest Points

Those of us who are not hams need this encouragement and practice most of all! These are pretty easy things to do, even for us radio newbies. Earn as many contest points as you can in the following ways:

• EMAIL to SMS-TEXT Messages. 1 point earned for each email to SMS-TEXT Message sent or received.
• SHORTWAVE Broadcasts. 10 points for each Information Code copied during a CORAC Shortwave broadcast. There are 3 “regularly scheduled” Sunday Evening Shortwave Broadcasts posted on the CORAC website, and there will be several “spontaneous” broadcasts that “pop-up” during the contest period. Stay ALERT for notifications of these bonus broadcasts.
• NOAA Broadcasts. 1 point per day is earned for each NOAA weather radio broadcast listened to.
• ZOLEO (or similar) Satellite Messaging. 5 points earned for each ZOLEO or similar Satellite text or email message sent/received.
• GMRS, MARINE VHF, CB RADIO. 1 point per contact either by GMRS radio, Marine VHF radio, or CB.
• OTHER. Contacts made by runner, horse-and-rider, tin-can-and-string, paper airplane, balloon drop, sky writing, smoke signals, drum beating, or guardian angel are eligible and will earn appropriate points.

Amateur Radio (Ham) Points

• Voice Contacts. 1 point for each vhf/uhf contact made. 10 points for each HF SSB contact made.
• VarAC HF Messaging Contacts. 5 points for each VarAC contact. Bonus points per contact: 10 for a contact with a document attachment; 15 for then sending that document through a Winlink HF Gateway; and 50 for any out of band contact. Pings/SNR checks are not contacts.
• Winlink Emails. for each email sent through Winlink to a CORAC member: 1 point for sending by telnet; 5 points for sending through an HF Gateway; Bonus points per message: 1 if the message contains “Safe and Well” status; 2 if the message also goes to an email-to-SMS-Text address.
• APRS Messaging. 1 point is earned for each APRS contact to any station.

All logs claiming Amateur Radio points must be submitted at the conclusion of the contest exclusively from your winlink account to: W5PCA@Winlink.org.

BONUS POINTS:

Introducing our contest to other Amateur Radio Operators: 25 points per introduction; Operating our contest from another Amateur Radio Operator’s station: 25 points per contact; New CORAC National Communications Team recruit: 500 points.

A “Contact” means a communication back and forth to another person’s communication device…check ins and pings don’t count. The Contest Committee may adjust and improve the Contest Rules as we go along, all in good fun…