RSGB 70cm FMAC

Tonight, the 14th September see’s another night of action on the 70cm as the RSGBs FMAC and UKAC contests will get underway. This guide will hopefully help newcomers get into the contest.

The first hour (or technically 55minutes) is the FM only contest. This starts at 18:00 UTC until 18:55UTC, remember we are currently one hour ahead of UTC due to the summer time clock changes.

Contest activity is limited to between certain frequencies so that we don’t annoy those who don’t with to take part hogging the normal Simplex channels. Contest activity for the FMAC should be between 432.525 and 432.975 and 433.400 and 433.475Mhz. FM deviation should be set for 25kHz channel spacing.

The mode for the this first hour is purely FM.

Each contact you make you need to exchange some information, this needs to be signal report, your QSO serial number starting at 001, and your 6 character maidenhead locator.
i.e.
You are 5 7, 001 in IO83wg
Your next QSO would be 002, 003, 004 and so on. The other station will give you a signal report, their serial number and their locator which you will need to record in your log file.

Scoring, quite simply one point for each km in distance.

There are two sections to the contest a 10w and 50w power with no limit on antenna’s, the only recommendation is that you use a vertical antenna, as you would normally do for FM.

The club, GX4MWS has registered to take part in these events and the AFS code for your log uploads is MACC

At the end of the contest you have 7 days to get your QSOs in the correct file format and ready to upload. Anyone needing help with this, just keep a paper log and bring it along on Monday night to get it formatted correctly for entry to MACC.

Correctly formatted logs can be uploaded here and more details on the FMAC can be found here.

This contest doesn’t need any special radios, no special antennas, you can easily work contacts from high ground with a handheld, or home station. The UKAC which follows works in a similar way but allowed USB contacts, RTTY and FM, here you’ll need all-mode radio, horizontal yagi style antennas and possibly a laptop/tablet for RTTY. Most people stick to USB and FM however.