Africa FT4 DX Contest

Africa's FT4 contest, run on the second Saturday of April and of September: three hours on 80, 40 and 20 m at 100 watts, with grid squares exchanged.

Rules at mysarl.org.zaThe rules are the sponsor's. This page holds the dates and the facts.

When it runs

Second Saturday of April, and Second Saturday of September

1500Z → 1800Z Saturday

Times are UTC, as the sponsor states them.

Next runnings

1500Z Sat 10 Apr → 1800Z Sat 10 Apr · 3h2027
in 191 days
1500Z Sat 11 Sep → 1800Z Sat 11 Sep · 3h2027
in 345 days
1500Z Sat 8 Apr → 1800Z Sat 8 Apr · 3h2028
in 555 days
1500Z Sat 9 Sep → 1800Z Sat 9 Sep · 3h2028
in 709 days
1500Z Sat 14 Apr → 1800Z Sat 14 Apr · 3h2029
in 926 days
1500Z Sat 8 Sep → 1800Z Sat 8 Sep · 3h2029
in 1073 days

Operating

Modes: FT8/FT4 FT4
Bands: 80m40m20m
80m, 40m and 20m; recommended dial frequencies 3576 kHz, 7047.5 kHz and 14080 kHz (USB), the WSJT-X FT4 defaults.
Exchange: A signal report and the four-digit Maidenhead grid locator, using the FT4 mode.
Power categories: 100 W limit 100 W
Logs: no deadline or format recorded
Who can enter: Anyone, anywhere.
Aimed at African and nearby-island amateurs, but 'A separate category is available to non-African contestants.'

Where this comes from

Checked against the sponsor: Yes. The rule on this page was read off SARL's own published rules. Link last confirmed 2026-08-19.
What the source says: 2026 SARL Contest Manual Version 1.1 (2025-12-15), mysarl.org.za, 'The Africa FT4 DX Contest': '2.1. 15:00 to 18:00 UTC on 2nd Saturday of April - 11 April 2026' and '2.2. 15:00 to 18:00 UTC on 2nd Saturday of September - 12 September 2026'. Aim: 'The DX Contest is aimed at all licensed Radio Amateurs in the countries in Africa and the Indian Ocean and Atlantic Islands close to Africa. A separate category is available to non-African contestants.' Exchange: '3.2. Contestants shall exchange signal reports as well as their four-digit maidenhead grid locator using the FT4 mode.' Bands: '5.4. Contacts may be made on 80m, 40m and 20m.' Power: '4.2. Power shall be limited to 100 Watts.' Checked against SARL's own published dates as well as its rules: SARL publishes SARL-Contests-2026-Calendar.ics on the same page, whose times carry TZID="South Africa Standard Time" (a fixed +0200, no DST -- its own X-CALSTART confirms 09:00 local as 07:00Z). That calendar is an independent second source for every date encoded here.
Recorded caveats: Two legs off one record: both run 15:00-18:00 UTC and differ only in which second Saturday they anchor to. Power is capped at 100 W for everyone, so it is recorded as the single power category rather than as a set of entry classes. No log deadline is stated in the contest's own rules section.

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=sarl-africa-ft4

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.