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FT4 NS

The Northern California Contest Club sponsors weekly sprint practices on CW and RTTY and FT4, named NS (NCCC Sprints). These practices are for all operators. The special QSY rule does not apply to FT4 since the entire band is decoded at once.  The new FT4 sprint is focused on achieving high QSO rates and low NIL rates.

Day-Time
- FT4 NS practices will be held on each Thursday afternoon-evening.
- FT4 NS start time is 0100 UTC - 45 minutes BEFORE the regular RTTY NS begins
- Maximum operating time = 30 minutes (i.e., 0100-0130 UTC)
- Those operators continuing immediately to the RTTY NS session at 0145 UTC will now have 15 minutes to set up for that session.

Bands
For FT4 Sprint, use the standard FT4 frequencies:

160m	any
80m	3.575
40m	7.0475
20m	14.080
15m	21.140
10m	28.180
6m	50.318

Exchange
Grid square (following NA VHF, WW Digi and ARRL IDC)

Rules
NS general rules are at: https://www.ncccsprint.com/rules.html
Maximum power is 100 watts.

Scoring
Total QSOs times sum of multipliers (grids) on each band.
Grid multipliers count once per band.

Reporting
Thanks to WA7BNM for providing the 3830 score reporting each week. Also upload your log to LoTW so that all particpants can self-check their NIL rate.

NS Ladder Competition
Separate ladder for FT4 Sprint, adapted from https://ncccsprint.com/ladder.html

Your Support
If you want the Sprint FT4 practices to continue, vote by showing up each Thursday.
Watch for weekly announcements, we may change the times/bands as the seasons change.

Software
The new FT4 sprint is focused on achieving high QSO rates and low NIL rates using only the grid square as exchange as is done in the WW Digi, NA VHF and ARRL International Digital Contest. No special progamming is required. The WSJT software Settings > Advanced > Special Operating Activity > NA VHF may be used [1], and similarly for other software using ideas from WSJT.

All 'improved' 2.7.0-rc2 versions now support the NCCC FT4 short message protocol. Just download the version you like from https://sourceforge.net/projects/wsjt-x-improved/files/WSJT-X_v2.7.0/.  To enable the NCCC FT4 short message protocol, just go to Settings > Advanced, and check the "Special operating activity" checkbox, as well as "NA VHF", and "NCCC Sprint". The last used special operating activity can be toggled on/off just by right-clicking the "H" button. This is useful to temporarily leave the contest mode, for example to answer a station that has not switched on the contest mode.

A video demonstration of this version of WSJT operating in FT4 NS mode is at this link: https://wsjt-x-improved.sourceforge.io/

Guidelines & Tips

NOTE: YOU CAN DOWNLOAD AND PRINT OUT THESE GUIDELINES & TIPS FROM THIS PDF FILE HERE

A low NIL rate is achieved by all operators agreeing to log the QSO when they have received the call of QSO partner, exchange (grid) of QSO partner, and a QSL of both their own call and their own exchange.  An example sequence of QSOs is shown below.  The "red font" RR 73 explicit acknowledgment and 73 Second Acknowledgement [2] does not need to be transmitted or received. 

QSOs are logged at the beginning of the phase marked "+".  Each phase is 7.5 seconds long. The special version of WSJT implements the logging function as shown in the table below. With other software, manual logging using the "log_QSO" button may be required.

QSO phase	Runner N6AZ transmits	S&Per transmits	N6AZ logs	W6AA logs	N1AC logs	K5AD logs
1	CQ TEST N6AZ DM23
2		N6AZ W6AA DM22
3	+ W6AA N6AZ R DM23		W6AA
4		+ N6AZ W6AA RR73 N6AZ N1AC FM20		N6AZ
5	W6AA N6AZ 73 + N1AC N6AZ R DM23		N1AC
6		+ N6AZ N1AC RR73 N6AZ K5AD EM10			N6AZ
7	N1AC N6AZ 73 + K5AD N6AZ R DM23		K5AD
8		+ N6AC K5AD RR73				N6AZ
9	CQ TEST N6AZ DM23

Note that the runner N6AZ can log the QSO at the beginning of phase 3 because the S&Pers W6AA responding at phase 2 includes all three valid QSO requirements needed by the runner: (1) runner received S&Pers call, (2) runner received S&Pers grid, (3) runner received implicit QSL of runner’s call and grid.  The runner does not need to receive the RR73 explicit QSL of runner’s call and grid at phase 4 before logging the QSO so the S&Per does not need to send it. The runner does not need to send the 73 Second Acknowledgment at phase 5 and 7.  Instead, the runner sends R to the second S&Per N1AC and logs the second QSO at the beginning of phase 5 and sends R to the third S&Per K5AD and logs the third QSO at the beginning of phase 7.

The first S&Per W6AA can log the QSO at the beginning of phase 4 after receiving (1) the runner’s call, (2) runner’s grid during phase 1 and (3) the R as an explicit QSL of the S&Pers call and grid from the runner during phase 3. The S&Per does not need to send the RR73 at phase 4 since the runner has already logged the QSO at the beginning of phase 3. Similarly, the 2nd and 3rd S&Per don’t need to send RR73 but do log their QSOs with the runner at phases 6 and 8.

The runner can complete QSOs in 15 seconds (2 phases) provided there is at least one new caller after the runner sends R.  The simultaneous decoding of all transmissions during a phase is the key to high QSO rates.  This 240/hour or 4/min theoretical peak QSO rate can double by using SO2R.  In practice, the QSO rate will be lower due to lack of available callers and repeat transmissions.

The S&Per can call a new CQer or runner who has just sent R instead of sending the RR73 to the runner already worked and thus S&Pers can also complete QSOs in 2 phases, as shown in the tabelow below. The red text does not need to be transmitted or received. QSOs are logged before the transmissions marked +.
When the S&Per cannot find new runners to call, he calls CQ instead.

QSO phase	3 Runners Transmit W6AA N1AC K5AD	S&Per N6AZ transmits	N6AZ logs	W6AA logs	N1AC logs	K5AD logs
1	CQ TEST W6AA DM22 CQ TEST N1AC FM20 CQ TEST K5AD EM10
2		W6AA N6AZ DM23
3	+ N6AZ R W6AA DM22 CQ TEST N1AC FM20 CQ TEST K5AD EM10			N6AZ
4		W6AA N6AZ RR73 + N1AC N6AZ DM23	W6AA
5	N6AZ W6AA 73 CQ TEST W6AA DM22 + N6AZ R N1AC FM20 CQ TEST K5AD EM10				N6AZ
6		N1AC N6AZ RR73 + K5AD N6AZ DM23	N1AC
7	CQ TEST W6AA DM22 N6AZ N1AC 73 CQ TEST N1AC FM20 + N6AZ R K5AD EM10					N6AZ
8		K5AD N6AZ RR73 + CQ TEST N6AZ DM23	K5AD
9	CQ TEST W6AA DM22 CQ TEST N1AC FM20 N6AZ K6AD 73 CQ TEST K5AD EM10

[1] WSJT User Guide, section 7.4,
       https://wsjt.sourceforge.io/wsjtx-doc/wsjtx-main-2.6.0.html#CONTEST_MSGS
[2] Ed Muns W0YK, W0YK, “FT Second Acknowledgment”, Digital Contesting, NCJ, Sept/Oct 2022.