Commonwealth Contest (BERU)

Twenty-four hours of CW around the Commonwealth, one of the oldest contests in amateur radio -- entry is limited to the Commonwealth call areas, and everyone else is chasing the headquarters stations.

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

When it runs

Second full weekend of March

1000Z Saturday → 1000Z Sunday

Times are UTC, as the sponsor states them.

Next runnings

1000Z Sat 13 Mar → 1000Z Sun 14 Mar · 24h2027
in 163 days
Logs due 1000Z Fri 19 Mar
1000Z Sat 11 Mar → 1000Z Sun 12 Mar · 24h2028
in 527 days
Logs due 1000Z Fri 17 Mar
1000Z Sat 10 Mar → 1000Z Sun 11 Mar · 24h2029
in 891 days
Logs due 1000Z Fri 16 Mar
1000Z Sat 9 Mar → 1000Z Sun 10 Mar · 24h2030
in 1255 days
Logs due 1000Z Fri 15 Mar

Operating

Modes: CW
Bands: 80m40m20m15m10m
3.5, 7, 14, 21 and 28 MHz.
Exchange: RST plus a serial number starting at 1 and incrementing by 1, irrespective of band. Commonwealth society headquarters stations add 'HQ' after the serial.
Logs: due 5 days after the end
Who can enter: Entry limited to 151 listed entities. K stations may be worked but cannot submit an entry.
'Only stations operating from areas in the Commonwealth Call Area list may participate in this contest.' The list is RSGB's own, published at rsgbcc.org/hf/information/codes.shtml and read from there: 143 call areas across 151 prefixes, from 3B6/7 Agalega to ZS8 Marion Island. Stations outside it may be worked but cannot submit an entry.

Where this comes from

Checked against the sponsor: Yes. The rule on this page was read off RSGB Contest Committee's own published rules. Link last confirmed 2026-08-23.
What the source says: rsgbcc.org/hf/rules/2026/rcwc.shtml, the RSGB Contest Committee's own rules: '14 - 15 March 2026 1000 - 1000 UTC', '3.5, 7, 14, 21 and 28 MHz', 'CW only', exchange 'RST plus Serial Number starting at 1 and incrementing by 1, irrespective of band', logs 'in Cabrillo format within 5 days following the end of the contest'. Entry: 'Only stations operating from areas in the Commonwealth Call Area list may participate in this contest.' That list is published by RSGB at rsgbcc.org/hf/information/codes.shtml and is read from there -- 143 call areas, 151 prefixes. Headquarters stations 'will identify by sending "HQ" after their serial number' and may be worked by anyone including stations in their own call area. RSGB also notes that 'England, Guernsey, Isle of Man, Jersey, Northen Ireland, Scotland and Wales are separate Commonwealth Call Areas' and that QSOs between them do not count for QSO points. Recurrence checked against four years of RSGB's own dates: 11 Mar 2023, 9 Mar 2024, 8 Mar 2025 and 14 Mar 2026 -- the second full weekend of March each time. Checked 2026-08-23.
Recorded caveats: DEFERRED SINCE 2026-08-20 ON ELIGIBILITY, NOT ON READING, AND NOW RESOLVED. The recurrence and the running were never in doubt; what blocked it was that the rules restrict entry to 'the Commonwealth Call Area list' and the rules page does not print that list. Writing an entity_list from general knowledge of the Commonwealth would have been this catalog inventing a restriction and attributing it to RSGB, which is the one thing it must not do. RSGB DOES PUBLISH THE LIST -- at hf/information/codes.shtml, linked from the rules page. The 151 prefixes here are read from that page and are RSGB's own, not a reconstruction. The lesson generalises: the blocker was a link nobody had followed. THE LIST IS PREFIXES, NOT DXCC ENTITIES, and they are not the same thing. RSGB splits Canada into VE1-VE9, Australia into VK0-VK9, New Zealand into ZL0-ZL9 and South Africa into ZS0-ZS8, because a 'call area' is the multiplier and there are several per country. It also treats England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man as seven separate areas whose contacts with each other score nothing. A K STATION CANNOT ENTER, and the page now says so in a sentence rather than a paragraph: listing 151 prefixes inline produced a wall of text instead of an answer, so eligibility_for summarises any list longer than eight.

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

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