The 2015/2016 official SOTA Challenge

From:

http://reflector.sota.org.uk/t/the-2015-2016-official-sota-challenge/9822

For more information:

http://www.sota.org.uk/

The MT are please to announce the next official SOTA challenge. This will be a challenge to make contacts on 6m and 10m.

We spent a lot of time arguing on what should and should not be included and we finally came up with the a different challenge this time. The previous challenge on 12m in 2013-2014 was simply to make as many QSOs as possible. We added in multipliers for activators to make it worth their while to activate a range of summits for the chasers. Likewise multipliers for the chasers made it well worth them listening about (and watching for spots) for every activator.

What came out of this was that a year long challenge skewed how people activated. This had an affect on those not taking part in the challenge. We also learned that QRP could be effective, but being a little QRO around 30-50W made a huge difference. We have changed the requirements so the effect on those who don't want to take part is lessened. We also hope the rules lessen the effect of power levels. In fact the challenge will get harder the more you take part. i.e. it's gets more challenging to score as the challenge progresses.

So here are the rules and they are similar for chasers and activators.

Chasers:

For every unique summit you chase on 10m or 6m you get a multiplier. 

For every unique activator chased you get 1 chaser challenge point. 

Your final score is chaser challenge points * multipliers.

Activators:

For every unique summit you activate on 10m or 6m you get a multiplier.

For every unique chaser worked you get 1 activator challenge point. 

Your final score is activator challenge points * multipliers.

Duration: The challenge runs for 6months in total split into two separate 3 month periods. Each period coincides with the Sporadic E season in either the Northern or Southern Hemispheres. The first period runs from 15th May 2015 to 14th August 2015. The second period runs from 15th November 2015 to 14th February 2016. No matter where you live, you can operate in both periods but during 1 period your chances of make contacts are massively improved.

Any legal mode and power for your licence and location. We expect people to respect the band plans.

You do not have to do anything special with logging. Work everyone, log everything and any QSOs that qualify for the challenge will be automatically scored the same way the 12m challenge was scored. The challenge scoring will run in parallel with all other SOTA awards.

There will be certificates for the top chaser and activator. There will be certificates for best chaser and activator on an association by association basis as well. The final number of certificates awarded will be based on the activity levels. This is the same as 12m were we originally planned just top chaser and top activator certificates, we awarded many more certificates to reflect the very high level of activity the 12m Challenge generated.

n.b. 

1. The dates for the Southern SpE window are subject to adjustment. It will be 3 months but the start and stop date may move to ensure we align with the peak SpE period.

2. We are aware that 6m may not be generally available in some countries. In that case you only need activate on 10m and your score will only be compared against other's10m scores.