1992 Calif. QSO Party 1600Z Oct. 3 - 2200Z Oct. 4

[Robert A. Wilson]

Here's your chance to work all 58 California Counties in a single
weekend, or earn a personalized bottle of wine or a CQP T-shirt
(new this year).  The list of who will be on from which county
is still being compiled and will be posted next week.

The 1992 California QSO Party, sponsored by the Northern California
Contest Club, is the biggest state QSO party of the year, and the only
one officially supported by K1EA's CT software (Version 8).  The top
20 finishers both in and out of state will receive bottles of
California wine.  After that, the top 120 or so finishers will receive
a handsome California QSO Party T-shirt with a county map of
California on the front.

Official rules for the CQP are in the October isssue of CQ (the one
with the results of CQ WW CW), on page 119, and in the October
issue of QST, in the "Contest Corral" section.

Work stations once per band and mode.  The exchange is QSO number, and
Calif. county for Calif. stations, QSO number and state/province/
country for others.  CW QSOs count 3 points, Phone QSOs count 2
points.  Send me a note if you don't have access to CQ or QST and need
more information.  Logs go to K6PU, Box 853, Pine  Grove, CA 95665, no
later than 15 November 1992.

CT Version 8 by K1EA supports the Calif. QSO Party.  Official support
is for in-California stations only, but it seems to work for out-of-state
entrants if you edit the CQP.DAT file.

1) Edit CQP.DAT and delete the first 58 lines (the ones with the
   states and provinces).
2) Change "CA:" in column one to the first county abbreviation
   in column two.
3) Change "6" in column three to "1", "2", ..., "9", "0"
   (evenly distributed).

(If you are patient I will upload a "fixed" CQP.DAT file for
out-of-state entrants later this week).

To log stations on county borders signing two or more counties,
log the first county and use the notepad feature (Alt-N) to
record the others.  Manually mark up the log later based on
information in filename.NOT.

For other out-of-state computer logging support in the Calif. QSO
Party, I know of two choices.  A local ham, Andy Faber, AE6Y, has
written a real-time CQP program that uses an interface similar to CT
(but not identical).  In addition, N6TR has a very sophisticated
real-time contest software program ideal for single-op, non-packet
stations.  N6TR's program supports many more contests than either NA
or CT, as it has a "parameter file" describing the particulars of each
contest.  The down side is that the user interface is considerably
different than CT's.  N6TR's program uses the same keying interface,
however.

Both the AE6Y and N6TR programs may be obtained from their respective
callbook addresses.

CU in the CQP!

73,
Bob, N6TV