RAC Canada Winter Contest

RAC's winter contest: 24 hours on a December date RAC announces each year, CW and phone from 160 to 2 metres.

Rules at rac.caThe rules are the sponsor's. This page holds the dates and the facts.

When it runs

Dates set by the sponsor each year (no derivable rule)

0000Z → 2359Z

Times are UTC, as the sponsor states them.

The sponsor announces these dates a year at a time and there is no rule to derive, so this calendar holds only the years they have published: 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026.

Next runnings

0000Z Sun 27 Dec → 2359Z Sun 27 Dec · 23h 59m2026
in 86 days
Logs due 2359Z Sun 10 Jan

Operating

Modes: CW / SSB
Bands: 160m80m40m20m15m10m6m2m
160, 80, 40, 20, 15, 10, 6 and 2 metres, CW and phone (SSB, FM, AM, etc.)
Exchange: Stations in Canada send RS(T) and province or territory; stations outside Canada, and Canadian maritime mobiles, send RS(T) and a serial number
Power categories: High PowerLow Power 100 WQRP 5 W
Logs: Cabrillo · due 14 days after the end · contest.rac.ca
Who can enter: Anyone, anywhere.
RAC: 'Amateurs all over the world are invited to join us in these celebrations.'

Where this comes from

Checked against the sponsor: Yes. The rule on this page was read off RAC's own published rules. Link last confirmed 2026-08-17.
What the source says: RAC Contest Rules 2026 (linked from https://www.rac.ca/contesting-results/): 'RAC Canada Winter Contest: Sunday, December 27, 2026 - 00:00:00 UTC to 23:59:59 UTC'. Earlier dates from RAC's own PDFs for each year; the 2019 rules even announce the next one, 'Next year the contest will be held on December 19, 2020.' Log deadline: 'all entries must be electronically submitted by 23:59 UTC 14 days after the end of the contest (January 11, 2027)'. DISCREPANCY RECORDED, NOT SILENTLY FIXED: December 27 plus 14 days is January 10, so RAC's parenthetical is one day later than RAC's own rule. The 14-day rule is what is encoded, because it is the rule; the Canada Day parenthetical in the same document checks out exactly. Logs also go to canadawinter@rac.ca.
Recorded caveats: RAC ANNOUNCES THIS DATE EACH YEAR; THERE IS NO RULE. The eight dates encoded here were read from RAC's own annual rules PDFs: 2019-12-28, 2020-12-19, 2021-12-18, 2022-12-17, 2023-12-30, 2024-12-28, 2025-12-20, 2026-12-27. That is the fourth, third, third, third, fifth, fourth and third Saturday of December -- and in 2026 a Sunday. No ordinal fits, so nothing is guessed: years RAC has not yet published are simply absent from this calendar.

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

Take it with you

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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.