It’s time to warm up for the SSB part in the Scandinavian Activity Contest. Over 300 Scandinavian stations with their exotic fluttery signals were on the air in September’s SAC CW, with about 1200 total logs submitted. This promises a large and exciting turn-out on all sides of this popular “Polar Battle” also on SSB!

• SSB 13 – 14 October 1200 – 1200 UTC

Things To Do:

• Read the rules Pay special attention to you choice of Category.
• Look for a record to break
• Announce your activity
• Check the propagation forecasts
• Put on the radio and have fun with the Scandinavians!

A reminder from the rules:
The 3.5 – 7 – 14 – 21 – 28 MHz frequency bands may be used according to the IARU HF Band Plan.
On 3.5 MHz, Region 1 stations must not transmit below 3510 kHz on CW or above 3790 kHz on SSB.

SAC CW 2012 is over. The activity was high and the contest logs are pouring into the log robot. Thanks to all participants, for making SAC a great contesting experience. We are impressed over the big QSO numbers from outside Scandinavia.

The log-robot stood up well with its first pile-up and we saw about 250 logs received the first hour after the contest. If you get trouble with the robot, please check your Cabrillo log. If you logged on paper there are several possibilities to make a Cabrillo log. You may use the PC-program SACMan or you can try WA7BNM’s SAC CW web form for entering your QSO’s.

If your are confused about the different classes in SAC, please take a look at the rules. Note, there are different classes for non-Scandinavians and Scandinavians.

The deadline for SAC CW logs is on Sunday September 30 23:59:59 2012 UTC

Next round…

… in the SAC Polar Battle is the SAC SSB contest 13 – 14 October 1200 -1200 UTC

We have now added an Announcement page for advertising your activity during SAC CW and SSB.
Go to the form and fill in your data. The entry will show up on the Activity pages for CW and SSB.

Last year’s SAC entailed many general developments, including open logs and log checking reports, and new categories to make the contest more attractive to non-Scandinavians. Still, there are always things to develop further. For example, the important Scandinavian Cup has practically always been a simple (although very tough!) OH-SM affair, and the spectator aspects of the contest have been lacking.

This year SAC is teaming up with the popular online scoring site cqcontest.ru to dramatically improve the real-time features of the contest. Scandinavian national teams of six stations from different categories will compete in a new “contest within a contest” for country and glory. The teams, chosen by each national league, will use real-time scoring and, in many cases, provide real-time audio and video from their efforts through the above-mentioned website to appease curious spectators.

SAC will be the first annual ham radio contest to showcase the use of real-time technology in this spectator-directed manner. Coupled with the prestigious competition between national teams, it is hoped that a significant boost in media interest and excitement among the ham population will result. Simple briefs to help with outreach to journalistic outlets will be provided in English for use by the national leagues, contest clubs, and local hams.

See National team contesting trial SAC-2012 for further information on the national team contesting rules.

Note: The SAC National Team Contesting Trial is a trial and is done in parallel with the traditional Scandinavian Cup.

As you may have noticed, the site has been updated with a new design. Furthermore, the results are now searchable. Try it yourself and filter out your favourite score listing.

Next thing to do is to add on-line awards. Stay tuned!

The final results are now accurate. A few checklog entries remain to be added, together with participation certificates for everyone. We ask for your patience while the webmaster works on this.

The logchecking of this year’s Scandinavian Activity Contest SSB is now complete. The final results will be published on sactest.net in the next days, with the CW results having been online since 1.5 weeks ago (a few minor category changes to be made by the webmaster). Further extended write-ups on the results will come in due course.

The winner award plaques have now been ordered, and immediate work will focus on making the public logcheck (“UBN”) files available online and on shipping out diplomas as soon as possible. Again, if you would like to have early access to your UBN file, please e-mail oh6kzp@sral.fi.

Looking at the number of participants, SAC 2011, dubbed the “Polar Battle,” has been a smashing success. A total of 2290 logs were received on CW and SSB combined, breaking the previous record by about 350 logs. Most of the increase can be traced to a tripled participation by Team Finland and a 50-% increase in non-European SSB logs compared to 2010. Thanks to all for your efforts!