SARL Top Band QSO Contest unverified

Four nights on 160 m across southern Africa, from 00:01 local on the Thursday to 23:59 local on the Sunday, for the SARL Top Band Award.

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

These dates have not been checked against SARL's own published rules yet. They are computed from the rule below, which is what the catalog holds — but the sponsor's page wins.

When it runs

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

2201Z → 2159Z 4 days later

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: 2026.

Next runnings

The sponsor sets this date each year rather than by a rule, and has published through 2026. Years they have not announced are absent rather than guessed.

Operating

Modes: CW / Digital / SSB
Bands: 160m
CW 1 810-1 838 kHz; Digital 1 838-1 843 kHz; Phone 1 844-2 000 kHz.
Exchange: RS, RSQ or RST report and your 4-character grid square (for example KG30). In digital modes the counterparty's grid square is not mandatory.
Logs: no deadline or format recorded
Who can enter: Entry limited to ZS, V5, A2, Z2, 3DA, C9, 7P. K stations may be worked but cannot submit an entry.
'The event is open to all licensed amateurs in the SADC countries that have access to the 160-metre band.'

Where this comes from

Checked against the sponsor: unverified — these dates have not yet been checked against SARL's own page. Treat the sponsor's rules as authoritative.
What the source says: 2026 SARL Contest Manual Version 1.1 (2025-12-15), mysarl.org.za, https://mysarl.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2026-SARL-Contest-Manual-Version-1.1-2025-12-15.pdf, 'The SARL Top Band QSO Contest': '2. Date and Time 22:01 UTC 4 June (00:01 CAT) Thursday 4 June to 21:59 UTC on Sunday 7 June 2026. (Thursday to Sunday in the first full week of June).' Participation: '5.1. The event is open to all licensed amateurs in the SADC countries that have access to the 160-metre band.' SARL's own Date Ordered List gives the start as Wednesday 2026/06/03 22:01 UTC and the end as Sunday 2026/06/07 21:59 UTC. Every date is checked against SARL's own Date Ordered List of Contests in the same manual, which states UTC directly, and against SARL-Contests-2026-Calendar.ics.
Recorded caveats: VERIFIED FALSE, AND ENCODED AS MANUAL, FOR TWO SEPARATE REASONS. (1) SARL'S OWN TWO PAGES DISAGREE. The rules section says the contest starts '22:01 UTC 4 June (00:01 CAT) Thursday 4 June', but 22:01 UTC on Thursday 4 June is 00:01 CAT on FRIDAY 5 June. SARL's Date Ordered List resolves it: the start is Wednesday 3 June at 22:01 UTC, which is 00:01 CAT on Thursday 4 June. The date table is self-consistent and the prose is not, so the table is what is encoded. (2) 'THE FIRST FULL WEEK OF JUNE' HAS TWO READINGS THAT DIVERGE NEXT YEAR. If a full week is a Monday-to-Sunday wholly inside June, then in 2027 -- when 1 June is a Tuesday -- the first full week is 7-13 June and the Thursday is the 10th. If it means the first week containing the whole Thursday-to-Sunday block, the Thursday is the 3rd. The two agree in 2026 and differ in 2027, so no ordinal rule is encoded: only the date SARL published. Years SARL has not announced are absent rather than guessed. Ask SARL which reading is intended and this becomes a rule. log_format and log_deadline_days are absent: this pass read each contest's Aim, Dates, Frequencies and Exchange sections and did not read its Log Sheets section, so neither is recorded rather than assumed from SARL's other contests.

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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