No Stew For You? Then Dig Right Into the RAC Winter Contest

By Jamie Dupree NS3T, radio-sport.net 

If you're in need of a Christmas break contesting "fix" this holiday season, then look no further than the RAC Winter Contest, as Canadian hams will fill the bands for a 24 hour test starting Friday night Eastern Standard Time.

The number one single operator prize will be up for grabs as well, as defending High Power champ Yuri Onipko VE3DZ expects to focus his energy elsewhere.

"It is unlikely that I will be doing serious effort in RAC Winter this year, since I want to concentrate on Stew Perry," said Onipko, referring to the worldwide 160 meter contest that overlaps the RAC test.

"My city QTH is very noisy which makes it almost impossible to operate seriously on low bands, and VE3SY offered me to use his QTH for Stew Perry this year so I want to use this opportunity," added Onipko.

VE3DZ instead may do a single band effort from home before going to VE3SY's QTH for Stew Perry.

"It is our national contest," said Onipko, and "I feel kind of obligated to support it any way I can."

The basic strategy for VE3DZ is fairly simple.

"(c)oncentrate on working more VE's for 10 pointers instead of DX, even when there is a good opening to Europe."

The introduction of new single mode CW and SSB categories led last year to a jump in logs for the 2006 RAC Winter test, with over 400 logs submitted.

For last year's RAC Winter results, check out their contest review at the RAC web site.