[CQ-Contest] QSO Party Rules

[jimk8mr at aol.com]

It's not just rules you're dealing with. It's also geography.
>From Ohio, normal skip on 20 meters has us skipping over W1, W2, W3, W8, W9, and most of W4 and VE3. That's a lot of people who we can't work when we're on 20 meters. OTOH, from Florida, especially southern Florida, on 20 meters we skip over FL, GA, and AL, letting us to potentially work 47 states and all of Canada. This enters into why FQP does not have 80 meters - we'd be working those three states and struggling to work the rest.
In the Ohio QSO Party this year - perhaps a difficult example considering there were solar storms and radio blackouts going on - as a mobile I worked lots of people on 20 up until 2100Z or so, and a few, including W6's, as late as 0030Z
I do agree that some QP cultures value working all the in-state counties. I've seen lots of email traffic from people in Pennsylvania after the first day of the Pennsylvania QSO Party asking if people have worked or heard Wyoming or Indiana. Not the states, but the counties.

73  -  Jim   K8MR



-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Brown <k9yc at audiosystemsgroup.com>
To: cq-contest <cq-contest at contesting.com>
Sent: Sat, Sep 17, 2022 6:32 pm
Subject: [CQ-Contest] QSO Party Rules

I've long enjoyed working QSO parties, and have won a few, but one 
scoring rule for many of them discourage my participation, and caused me 
to avoid them. The rule awarding multipliers to in-state stations for 
their counties causes mobiles to avoid the higher bands while those 
bands are still open, causing me to miss multipliers. I won't be on for 
TXQP and the Salmon Run, both this weekend.

Other parties that I've worked in the past but abandoned for that reason 
include TNQP, NEQP, and PAQP.

Parties that I will work include FLQP, GAQP, 7QP, and CQP.

73, Jim K9YC