Through the QSO Today virtual expo I introduced the idea of RaDAR Sport. Since then I have done much to contribute towards the idea, in ZS at least. The RaDAR Challenge has been with us for many years, unusual ham radio fun. It was designed to cover a whole twenty four hours with the hope of international RaDAR to RaDAR communications. It was mostly touch and go with no defined times, modes or frequencies and usually local groups made arrangements to meet somewhere, somehow on the bands.
I want to take RaDAR to the next step starting in November as a trial run for future years. The three dates per year will remain but the times will become shorter and planned using UTC as a reference time. My suggestion is that the RaDAR Sport Challenges start at 14:00 local time in whatever time zone you live and the end time16:00 local. That gives a full two hours to make as many deployments as possible. The requirement is still five QSO’s per deployment point.
Individuals or teams of individuals will line up at the start time. No motorised transport, you are either on your feet, on a bicycle or in a canoe. Travel distances for on foot and canoes, as always, one kilometer and two kilometers if travelling by bicycle. This allows us to compare apples with apples.
During the past few weeks I have been developing the online RaDAR Sport log and has been tested mainly by the CW guys in ZS. It caters for RaDAR Grid exchanges. This online system will need to be used during the RaDAR Sport challenges. It will allow the world to see the activities taking place throughout the world and chasers can now have better opportunities to work RaDAR Sport participants and they will have a general idea where the stations are active having international access to the online logbook.
I have also built an Evaluator so each period can be evaluated separately or an evaluation of the international 24 hour period can be done in literally, seconds. The Evaluator has been tested and has become very popular. An option to do the RaDAR Sport evaluations still needs to be written but the infrastructure is now there to evaluate just about any type of contest. In the case of RaDAR, accurate grid exchanges are critical. No points for unmatched grids or incorrect times.
Keeps these ideas in mind and try to do the November challenge according to these rules.
The online logbook can be accessed on http://www.radarops.co.za/radarsport/RaDAR_Sport.html
The Evaluator can be accessed on http://www.radarops.co.za/radarsport/evaluate_Sprint.html
System access is controlled via registered PIN’s so RaDAR Sport participants can request a PIN from Eddie ZS6BNE in time for the RaDAR Sport challenge. This is there to limit any abuse of the system.
Hope to see your callsigns in the log! 73 de Eddie ZS6BNE
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