RULES 

1. Organizer: Bulgarian Federation of Radio Amateurs (BFRA)

2. Participants: Only radio amateurs from Balkan countries, i.e. with callsigns, starting with (in alphabetical order): 4O, 5B, 9A, C4, E7, ER, H2, J4, LZ, P3, S5, SV, SW, SX, SY, SZ, TA, TB, TC, YM, YO, YP, YQ, YR, YT, YU, Z3, Z6, ZA, ZC4.

3. Objective: To contact as many as possible radio amateurs from Balkan countries (including own country) with as many as possible prefixes (see bellow).  

4. Date and Time: From 13:00 UTC to 17:00 UTC on 11 February 2024, Sunday.

5. Bands: 3.5 MHz and 7 MHz. Change of the band requires at least 10 minutes activity on the new band.

6. Modes: CW, SSB, Mixed.

7. Categories: Category A – Power permitted to the amateur according his/her license, but not exceeding 1000 W INPUT and Category B – Power not exceeding 10 W INPUT (QRP). The participants in this category transmit /QRP after their callsign (e.g. LZ1US/QRP).

8. Allowed contacts: Only one contact with any station is valid on each band, independently on the mode (e.g. if LZ6Y makes a contact with ZA1RE on 7 MHz / CW, another contact between them on the same band, regardless on CW, or on SSB, shall not be valid, but a contact between them on 3.5 MHz shall be valid).

9. Exchange: CW – RST report plus the consequent number of the QSO (e.g. 599006), SSB – RS report plus the consequent number of the QSO (e.g. 59023). In case of changing the mode or band the sequence of numbers continues.

10. QSO Points: Each contact with category A station is worth one (1) point while each contact with category B station is worth two (2) points. Repeated contacts with the same correspondent on the same band are worth zero (0) points for both (initial and repeated) contacts. Contacts logged with more than 5 minutes difference from the real time are also worth zero (0) points.

11. Multipliers:  Separately for each band – the number of Balkan prefixes contacted on the relevant band. For the purposes of this contest a different prefix is each callsign that differs in its first three marks. Therefore LZ6, LZ7, SV3, SV4, Z31, Z32, TA1, TA2 etc. are different multipliers, but LZ07KM counts as LZ0, YO2014A counts as YO2, ER650MD counts as ER6, etc. Participation from area with prefix different from original counts as that prefix (e.g. SV0XCA/5 counts as SV5).

12. Final score: The final score for both categories is the sum of QSO points on 3.5 MHz band, multiplied by the multiplier on this band, plus QSO points on 7 MHz band, multiplied by the multiplier on this band (e.g. if Z32TY has contacted 20 stations on 3.5 MHz, 3 of them QRP, number of contacted prefixes 15 as well as 25 stations on 7 MHz, 5 of them QRP, number of contacted prefixes 18, his final score shall be (17+6)x15 + (20+10)x18 = 345+540 = 885 points).

13. Classification: Separately for Category A and Category B. No difference between CW only, SSB only or mixed.

14. Logs: All times must be in UTC (GMT). Electronic logs in Cabrillo format sent by e-mail to bfra_hq@hotmail.com with a copy to panayotdanev@yahoo.com are compulsory. All logs must be sent not later than 18 February 2024, Sunday.

15. Awards: Medals will be awarded to first six (6) classified in category A and first three (3) in category B, as well as best participants from each country, if not in those above.