SARL VHF/UHF FM Mode Contest

Three hours of FM on 6 m, 2 m and 70 cm, run twice a year three weeks after South Africa's licence exams, 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 June, and Last Saturday of October

1000Z → 1300Z Saturday

Times are UTC, as the sponsor states them.

Next runnings

1000Z Sat 31 Oct → 1300Z Sat 31 Oct · 3h2026
in 29 days
1000Z Sat 12 Jun → 1300Z Sat 12 Jun · 3h2027
in 253 days
1000Z Sat 30 Oct → 1300Z Sat 30 Oct · 3h2027
in 393 days
1000Z Sat 10 Jun → 1300Z Sat 10 Jun · 3h2028
in 617 days
1000Z Sat 28 Oct → 1300Z Sat 28 Oct · 3h2028
in 757 days
1000Z Sat 9 Jun → 1300Z Sat 9 Jun · 3h2029
in 981 days

Operating

Modes: FM
Bands: 6m2m70cm
FM mode on the 6m, 2m and 70cm bands.
Exchange: A signal report and your full six-character Maidenhead locator. When working a mobile station the contesting station must obtain its grid position.
Logs: no deadline or format recorded
Who can enter: Entry limited to ZS, V5, A2, Z2, C9, 7P, 3DA. K stations may be worked but cannot submit an entry.
'The Contest is open to all licensed Radio Amateurs in South Africa, Namibia (V5), Botswana (A2), Zimbabwe (Z2), Mozambique (C9), Lesotho (7P) and ESwatini (3DA). Only contacts with these states will count.' SARL names the prefixes itself here, so unlike its club contests this list is not an inference.

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), 'SARL VHF/UHF FM Mode Contest': '2.1. From 10:00 UTC to 13:00 UTC on Saturday 13 June 2026 (2nd Saturday of June) 2.2. From 10:00 UTC to 13:00 UTC on Saturday 31 October 2026 (Last Saturday of October). The dates are three weeks after the RAE Radio Amateur Examination.' Frequency: '3. FM mode on the 6m, 2 m and 70cm bands'. Contacts: '4.1. Contacts must be two-way point to point. Stations shall exchange signal reports as well as their full six-digit Maidenhead locator.' '4.6. No EME, repeater, satellite or IRLP (Echo link etc.) contacts are allowed.' Eligibility: '1.6. The Contest is open to all licensed Radio Amateurs in South Africa, Namibia (V5), Botswana (A2), Zimbabwe (Z2), Mozambique (C9), Lesotho (7P) and ESwatini (3DA). Only contacts with these states will count.' Both dates are confirmed by SARL's own Date Ordered List and its SARL-Contests-2026-Calendar.ics.
Recorded caveats: THE RECORD THAT PUT FM IN THE MODE VOCABULARY. This contest is FM ONLY, and until 2026-08-19 this catalog had no FM token -- it used SSB as a general phone token, which was serviceable while every phone contest also allowed SSB. Recording an FM-only contest as SSB would have stated something SARL does not permit, which is precisely the overstatement the mode rules exist to prevent, so FM was added to CATALOG_MODES in both engines and to the filter families instead. Ten records that had been carrying FM in submodes moved it into modes in the same commit. Two legs on one record: both run 10:00-13:00 UTC and differ only in their anchor, and the anchors are different SHAPES -- the second Saturday of June and the LAST Saturday of October -- which a composite holds without trouble. SARL explains the timing: 'The dates are three weeks after the RAE Radio Amateur Examination', which is why the contest is aimed at newly licensed amateurs. That is context rather than a rule; the ordinals are what is encoded. No log deadline was read in this pass, so none is recorded.

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-vhf-uhf-fm

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.