On July 23 Radio Amateurs of Canada issued a bulletin with regard to the Canada 150 Awards. Please note that Fred Orsetti, VE7IO, is the BC Contact should you wish to operate a station in BC.
Guidelines and Procedure for the RAC Canada 150 Award
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The RAC Canada 150 Award is a celebration of Canada’s 150th birthday since Confederation in 1867. The Award is issued for contacting the 14 RAC stations areas – VA2RAC, VA3RAC, VE1RAC, VE4RAC, VE5RAC, VE6RAC, VE7RAC, VE8RAC, VE9RAC, VO1RAC, VO2RAC, VY0RAC, VY1RAC and VY2RAC – between July 1, 2017 and December 31, 2017.
In addition to the RAC Canada Contest, the RAC Canada Winter Contest and the IARU HF Championship Contest, the RAC stations will be activated by volunteers at other times as described below.
Note: For more information on becoming a volunteer please see the Guidelines and Procedures below. For more information on RAC Operating Awards including the Canada C3 Expedition Award visit: http://wp.rac.ca/operating/rac-awards/
We have lined up a few stations so far and Gabor Horvath, VE7JH, is planning to use his experience with the VE100VIMY portable operations to line up some more. All of the RAC call signs are going to be activated as much as possible between now and the end of the year, depending on our ability to find volunteers to activate them. The intent is to get all of them activated for whatever times we are able to arrange.
We will publicize some of these activations in advance on the RAC Canada 150 Award webpage (http://wp.rac.ca/rac150) and via RAC bulletins and social media so please be sure to subscribe to the RAC mailing list to receive notifications (http://wp.rac.ca/rac-notifications/). For example, there will be a team operating VE1RAC from Cape Breton Island in October and there may be another VY0RAC operation in October from Eureka similar to the activation in July.
Other activations of a more routine or ongoing nature may not have special bulletins dedicated to them. For example, Jean-Paul Leblanc, VE9BK and Marcel Leblanc, VE9ML, will be activating VE9RAC for the rest of the year. The best way to keep tabs on the activations will probably be by watching the DX Cluster (e.g., dxsummit.fi).
We are hoping to get all of the RAC stations on the air for the RAC Canada Winter Contest on December 30. We had all but one call sign on the air in the RAC Canada Day Contest.
We have prepared a few Guidelines and Procedures to assist you to make contacts with RAC stations and to provide more information on how to volunteer.
Guidelines and Procedures for the RAC Canada 150 Award
1) Individuals volunteering to operate RAC call signs must be RAC members; clubs must be RAC Affiliated clubs.
2) Requests are to be made to the RAC Regional Director or his designate. In British Columbia, RAC Director Allan Munnik, VA7MP/VE7RMP, has delegated the authority to Fred Orsetti, VE7IO, during the RAC 150 Award period. If there are other such delegations made we will include the information on the RAC Canada 150 Award webpage.
3) RAC Directors or their designates will email racqsl@rac.ca about operations in advance. As described above, operations from rare or unusual locations will be publicized; ongoing operations from routine locations may not be specially publicized.
4) Individuals using the RAC call signs may use any bands or modes, keeping in mind that the goal is to allow as many Amateurs as possible to contact them.
5) Individuals using the RAC call signs must not operate in a manner that would bring discredit to RAC or damage RAC’s reputation.
6) Individuals using the RAC call signs must keep a log (call sign, date, time, band, mode – all the usual information).
7) Logs from the RAC call sign station operations are to be submitted to racqsl@rac.ca or racqsl@gmail.com. Logs should be in an acceptable format: ADIF or Cabrillo is fine; for other formats contact racqsl@rac.ca.
8) For a short-duration operation, the log is to be submitted as soon as possible after the end of the operation. For ongoing operations, logs should be submitted every few days.
9) RAC station logs will be uploaded to the RAC 150 Award database and to Logbook of the World soon after they are received.
10) Award chasers do not need to submit logs. Award chasers may check on their progress by entering their call sign where indicated in the table provided at the bottom of the RAC Canada 150 Award webpage. Award chasers wanting a paper QSL for a contact with a station using a RAC call sign should QSL via the address listed at QRZ.com. It is recommended that award chasers make use of the DX cluster (e.g., dxsummit.fi) and similar means to keep track of current operations at any time.
Special thanks to volunteers Gabor Horvath, VA7JH, Keith Witney, VE7MID, Attila Holop, HA2NA, John Scott, VE1JS, Richard Ferch, VE3KI, Glenn MacDonell, VE3XRA, Paul Burggraaf, VE3PRB, Mike Hutchison and Alan Griffin for organizing this event.
We hope you enjoy taking part in this celebration!
Alan Griffin
RAC MarCom Director