VK Shires Contest

It's just four weeks to the start of the very first VK Shires Contest.

The are a couple of very big differences with the VK Shires over other VK contests ..one DX working is encouraged and multipliers are allowed twice per band..

OK what is a multiplier ? What is a dupe ? What are all these contester terms these guys are speaking - English?

In most VK contests the final score is merely the sum on the number of contacts you make in the defined contest period.

If you make 100 contacts your final score is 100, sort of simple to understand.. The VK Shires scoring system is different - for every different shire you work on phone or cw
on a given band it multiplies by the number of QSOs made to get a final score.. how does this work ?

Let's assume you are based in Melbourne and are lucky enough to work 100 contacts in Melbourne CBD in the VK Shires your score would be 100 points. If however you worked one of those stations on CW and 99 on voice your score would be 200 ..one contact would double your score by being frequency agile and jump from band to band you could easily work 100 contacts with 100 multipliers or a score of 10,000.

Another feature of the VK shires is we have deleted any reference that allows another station to know how well you are going in the contest.

Often I have heard stations stopping operating in a contest when they realise that the station down the road has an unbeatable lead..

In the VK Shires by ramping up new shires even a station many points in front could be caught and overtaken by the station who is judicious in band changes and working of new shires recently I asked several contesters and DXers how they would approach the first running of the contest.

Bill VK4FW offered his thoughts on how to run the test..

What an interesting series of questions. Well for what its worth here are my suggestions for VK ops.

1. Concentrate on working dx on 20 and 40m.. and possibly 15 ..grab the VK’s as they come along

2. Make sure u get as many VK’s in the log as possible on the 80m band....whatever dx you actually work will be a bonus and remember NO DX WINDOW permitted.

3. Remember that SSB and CW are the permitted modes

4. Most importantly...... HAVE FUN.

Why haven't I mentioned other bands.. because anything you get will be poor at best and if you are going portable you will be busy enough without worrying about them...... and if you're at home then again, I think you will be busy enough.

Just one more thing.. tell all ur friends worldwide.. flood
them with info and request that they look for you in the contest.

We are interested in what others think... or do they not wish to share their winning formula?

Source: Wireless Institute of Australia