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Q: Is there a forum for discussion of the Collegiate
Championship and other issues faced by college and university radio clubs?
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A: Yes! There is an active email reflector called
ham-univ where anything and everything related to Amateur Radio
at colleges and universities is discussed. To subscribe to this reflector,
send an email message to
majordomo@w6yx.stanford.edu
with
subscribe ham-univ by itself in the message body. You will be
emailed with much more information about the reflector when your request
has been processed. To send email to the reflector after you have subscribed,
address it to ham-univ@w6yx.stanford.edu.
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Q: When is the Collegiate Championship?
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A: The Collegiate Championship is run concurrently with the
ARRL
November Sweepstakes radio contest. Every year, the CW contest is on
the first full weekend of November, and the phone contest is on the third
full weekend of November. On both weekends, the contest starts Saturday
afternoon (2100 UTC Saturday,) and ends Sunday night (0300 UTC Monday.)
See the Collegiate Championship rules for more
information.
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Q: Who is eligible to participate?
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A: Any radio club at an institution of higher education
beyond the high school level is eligible to participate. There are no
restrictions concerning who is eligible to operate at each club. Students,
faculty, staff, alumni, and other members of a club are welcome to contribute
in this contest. See the Collegiate Championship
rules for more information.
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Q: Do we have to enter the ARRL November Sweepstakes in the
School Radio Club category in order to participate in the Collegiate
Championship?
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A: No. College and University Clubs may enter any of the
Sweepstakes entry categories and still be eligible for the Collegiate
Championship. We expect the overwhelming majority of Collegiate Championship
entrants will not participate in the School Radio Club category, because
the ARRL rules for that category prevent many college and university club
members, including club station trustees in many cases, from operating.
We expect that most college and university clubs will enter in the Multi-Single
(M) category. You can read more
about the very controversial 1999 ARRL November Sweepstakes rules change
to the School Radio Club category.
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Q: Do we have to operate from campus?
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A: One of the stated goals of the Collegiate Championship
is to give college and university radio clubs an extra incentive to
invest the time and money and organization necessary to build a better
club station on campus. For this reason, clubs are expected to operate
from their club station on campus, if they have one. If a club does not yet
have a station on their campus, and are still interested in participating,
they can do so from a member's personal station. Every club is highly
encouraged, though, to use the Collegiate Championship as a focal point to
creating a better club station - one that will be usable by club members
year-round. See the Collegiate Championship rules
for more information.
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Q: Where do we send the logs and summary sheet?
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A: Official results of the Collegiate Championship will
be determined from the
results of the ARRL
November Sweepstakes. So, to enter the Collegiate Championship, you need to
also enter the ARRL November Sweepstakes. This means that you must
send your logs and a summary sheet, in the proper formats, to the
appropriate email
address at the ARRL. See the
General
Rules for all ARRL Contests for much more information about log formats,
where and when to submit them. Clubs entering the Collegiate Championship
should also be familiar with the
ARRL
November Sweepstakes Rules.
Clubs entering the Collegiate Championship are encouraged to also send a
copy of their summary sheet, but not the logs, to Ken Harker WM5R. For
information on how to do this, see the Collegiate
Championship rules.
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Q: What's the deal with the "combined score?"
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A: The combined mode champion of the Collegiate Championship
is based on a points system. Each entrant's CW and phone score is divided by
the highest scoring collegiate score for that mode and multiplied by 1000.
The overall combined score is the sum of the CW and phone points. For example,
if your college club's score in the CW contest is half that of the highest
scoring college station in the CW contest, your club gets 500 points.
Similarly, if your club's phone score is 3/4 that of the highest scoring
college station in the phone contest, you would get 750 points. Your college
club would get a combined score of 1,250 points. The maximum combined score
is 2,000, which can only be achieved if the same club has the highest score
in both modes. This may seem like a lot of trouble - why not just add the CW
and phone scores together? Phone scores in the Sweepstakes tend to be higher
than CW scores as a general rule. Using this points method helps even the
balance and ensure that a great effort on CW is rewarded just as highly as a
great effort on phone.
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Q: We do not have a club station on campus, so we will be
operating from a member's station. Is it possible to operate from one
station for a portion of the contest, and then move our operation to another
station?
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A: No. Since Collegiate Championship participants are also
entering the
ARRL
November Sweepstakes competition, the ARRL contest rules apply. In
the General
Rules for All ARRL Contests: "3.7. All transmitters and receivers must
be located within a 500-meter diameter circle, excluding antennas." So,
unless the two members' stations are within a half-kilometer of one another,
it is not allowed in the Sweepstakes (and hence, not allowed in the Collegiate
Championship.)
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Q: We do not have a club station on campus, so we will
be operating from a member's station. Do we need to operate from the same
members' station both weekends, or could we use one for the SSB weekend
and a different one for the CW weekend?
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A: It would be OK to use one member's station for the CW
weekend and a different member's station for the SSB weekend.
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Q: We have a club station on campus, but we do not have a
club callsign. Can operators come and go during the weekend, operating
from the club station and using their own callsigns?
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A: The ARRL would consider each of those operations to be
separate contest entries, and they would only be admissible under the
spirit of the "family station" provision of
General
Rules for All ARRL Contests rule 3.5. On-campus college club stations
used by students living in dorms and apartments without their own stations
certainly qualify for this exception in the spirit of the rule. Nonetheless,
because they would be separate contest entries, only one such entry is
eligible for the Collegiate Championship.
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