A light is considered “activated” the moment a contact is made from or to the light, provided that the activator is physically present at the light or falls within the guidelines of the “Visual Sight Rule.” A station need not give out the lighthouse number during the QSO, but the name and ARLHS number must be placed prominently on the QSL card confirming the contact in order for the recipient to get award credit for working the light.

A situation may arise where you are within visual sight of more than one light. The question arises: Can you activate all of them? Here you have your choice. You may give out the number for one of them only; or, if you wish to “activate” both (all) lights, you may do so provided that you are within the distance and property limit as defined under “Lighthouse Contacts” and provided that each light is confirmed separately in the QSO and identified by both name and the full ARLHS number.

NOTE: During ARLHS sponsored contests the only “legal” and acceptable way to cite the lighthouse number in QSO’s and on QSL’s is to use the full number — and that includes the letters “ARLHS” plus the country prefix plus the number. Simply citing “USA-040” or, worse yet, “040” is NOT acceptable and the contact will be disallowed for scoring purposes.

For example, you are operating KC2HOU and are within 1000 meters of three lights: ARLHS USA-536 (Liston Range Front) and ARLHS USA-537 (Liston Range Rear) and the Barnegat Lightship (ARLHS USA-040). In a contact with K2JXW, you cite the following:

“K2JXW this is KC2HOU. We confirm ARLHS lighthouse number ARLHS USA-536, Liston Range Front light. You are 59 in NJ, and the operator is Bob.
We also confirm ARLHS number ARLHS USA-537, Liston Range Rear light, 59, NJ, Bob. Break.
And we confirm light number ARLHS USA-040, Barnegat Lightship, 59, NJ, Bob. Break.
Back to you. K2JXW this is KC2HOU.”

[As amended November 28, 2001 — This amendment replaces the “hour wait between contacts rule.]

For scoring purposes in contests and events, these would count as three completely separate QSO’s and would be scored as such. 1 pt for the QSO + 2 pts if the contact is a member + 3 more points for the light = 6 pts total. The 6 pts would apply for each of the three “QSO’s” in this contact, for a grand total of 18 pts.