Makrothen RTTY Contest

A three-period RTTY contest on the second full weekend of October, scored by the distance between 4-character grid squares with a bonus on 40 and 80 metres.

Rules at pl259.orgThe rules are the sponsor's. This page holds the dates and the facts.

When it runs

Second full weekend of October

0000Z → 0800Z Saturdaysession 1
1600Z → 2400Z Saturdaysession 2
0800Z → 1600Z Sundaysession 3

Times are UTC, as the sponsor states them.

3 sessions run off the one anchor day; each is a separate running with its own log.

Next runnings

0000Z Sat 10 Oct → 0800Z Sat 10 Oct · 8h2026
in 3 days
1600Z Sat 10 Oct → 0000Z Sun 11 Oct · 8h2026
in 3 days
0800Z Sun 11 Oct → 1600Z Sun 11 Oct · 8h2026
in 4 days
0000Z Sat 9 Oct → 0800Z Sat 9 Oct · 8h2027
in 367 days
1600Z Sat 9 Oct → 0000Z Sun 10 Oct · 8h2027
in 367 days
0800Z Sun 10 Oct → 1600Z Sun 10 Oct · 8h2027
in 368 days

Operating

Modes: RTTY
Bands: 80m40m20m15m10m
Exchange: The first 4 characters of your Maidenhead grid locator (e.g. FM19, JO41); no RST. Send the same locator for every QSO.
Power categories: Low Power 100 WHigh Power 1500 W
Logs: Cabrillo · pl259.org
Who can enter: Anyone, anywhere.
'For amateurs around the world to contact as many other amateurs as possible' -- no entrant restriction is stated.

Where this comes from

Checked against the sponsor: Yes. The rule on this page was read off Pizza Lovers 259's own published rules. Link last confirmed 2026-10-07.
What the source says: pl259.org/makrothen/makrothen-rules/, read by the owner in a browser and pasted 2026-10-07 (the site's robots.txt disallows automated fetching, so it was not crawled): 'The contest takes place on the second full weekend of October each year. The next contest dates are Saturday 10th and Sunday 11th October 2026, with three separate periods: Saturday 00:00-08:00 UTC and 16:00-24:00 UTC and Sunday 08:00-16:00 UTC. A station may participate in all three periods and should submit one combined log for all periods.' Mode: 'using RTTY'. Bands: 'Only the 80, 40, 20, 15 and 10 meter bands may be used.' Exchange: 'Send the first 4 characters of the "Maidenhead Grid Square Locator" ... No RST report is required.' Scoring: QSO points are the distance in km between the two grid-square centres, rounded down, times a band factor (80m 2.0, 40m 1.5, 20/15/10m 1.0); same grid square scores 100 with no band factor; there are no multipliers. Power: 'Total output power must not exceed 100 watts' (Low) and '1500 watts' (High). Log: 'Logs MUST be submitted in CABRILLO format' through the Makrothen Log Submission form. Deadline: 'All logs must be received by 2359Z on 21st October 2026 in order to qualify.' Sponsor: 'Pizza Lovers 259 (PL259) ... The Contest Manager is Stu Phillips, K6TU.'
Recorded caveats: ACCESS RESTRICTION: robots.txt on pl259.org disallows automated fetching, so the page is never crawled; a human reads it and the text is pasted in. PL259 is the sponsor, not an aggregator. scripts/check_links.py skips this host. LOG DEADLINE ABSENT BY DESIGN: the sponsor states a dated instant for this edition, 2359Z on 21 October 2026, not a span. The stored end is 1600Z on Sunday 11 October, so the sponsor's instant is 10 days 7 hours 59 minutes later and no whole number of days reproduces it; log_deadline_days is left unset, the same treatment as JARL's All Asian DX Contest. (The relayed brief said the page showed a 2025 deadline; the pasted text shows 2026. If the live page differs, the live page wins.) THREE PERIODS, ONE LOG: the contest is on the air in three blocks, which is why this record uses the sessions array; a single 0000Z Saturday to 1600Z Sunday block would put it on the air through the 0800-1600Z Saturday gap and the 0000-0800Z Sunday gap. Operator categories (single-op/multi-op, one or multiple receivers, each low or high power) are eight in all and are not modelled here; only the two power limits are. Recent rule changes the sponsor flags: from 2025 a logged clock error beyond plus or minus 2 minutes makes a log a checklog; from 2026 a human must initiate frequency changes, calling and logging, and autonomous systems are prohibited. Self-spotting is not permitted in any category. A club competition runs for fun, with a separate listing.

Something wrong? How to report it — a link to the sponsor's own page is all it takes.

Take it with you

Add to Google Calendar Subscribe (iCal)This record as JSON

Add to Google Calendar puts the next running in as a single event. It is one event, not a subscription — come back for the one after it, or use the feed below.

Subscribe (iCal) carries this contest's runnings for the next twelve months as UTC instants and keeps them current. Apple Calendar, Outlook and Thunderbird take this address directly. Its identifiers are stable across deploys, so re-subscribing does not duplicate anything: https://contestclock.com/api/ics?id=makrothen-rtty

Google has no working one-click subscribe. Paste that address into Settings → Add calendar → From URL. Google then polls it on its own schedule, often 8–24 hours, and that cannot be forced — so use Add to Google Calendar above if you want the next running in your calendar now.