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1999 CQP Results
by AD6E

DX
USA
California
Summary

For years, the California QSO Party has been the premier state QSO party, offering one of the highest levels of on-the-air participation. The 1999 running may not have set any new participation records in terms of logs received, but there seemed to be as much activity as in the past if not more. A total of 413 logs were received this year, or about 20% fewer than last year. Several big guns were heard on the air, whose logs never reached our desks. In fact, many new records were set again this year which is a good indication of high activity.

The biggest score by any station anywhere was the massive N6O effort put out by the Radio Oakley M/M folks. Again operating five transmitters, they blew past last year’s record of 655k and 4,933 QSOs with a feat of 705k and 5,452 QSOs! That’s a good example of what I mean by apparent increased activity despite a smaller number of official entrants. Congratulations to N6RO, K3EST, N6KT, K6AW, WA6O, KX7M, and AE0M for a great team effort!

Once again, all California Counties were on the air in force. Mobile operations by K6PJ and W6ZQ covered 11 counties, including the rare counties of Yolo and Sierra.

Nineteen different County Expeditions accounted for an additional 14 counties, including Alpine, Colusa, Mono, Mendocino, San Benito, Trinity, and Yuba. In an effort to get to some of the best sites, some counties were inundated with expeditions. Inyo and Lake counties each had three of them. County Expeditions are Field Day style operations from rare counties, or at least a nice location that’s off the beaten path.

County Expeditions:

A major part of the fun is to work all 58 multipliers. With all this activity, no less than 18 stations outside CA managed a complete CA sweep. The very first sweep was made by WA3HAE when Keith worked K6PJ operating mobile in Sierra county at 00:12Z. That’s only 8 hours and 12 minutes into the contest. Congratulations!

Sweeps of all CA counties:

In California, 48 stations found all 50 US states plus the eight Canadian call districts for sweeps. This is the only state QSO party where the number of multipliers is the same for both in-state and out-of-state operators.

Sweeps of all states and provinces:

The very first sweep from CA was made by N6MB at 21:33Z or 5 hours and 33 minutes! This is a new award for 1999. Congratulations.

For the first time this year, CQP offered a school competition. Dean, N6DE, kicked this off by sponsoring both the CA and the non-CA school trophies. Seven schools responded to this new award challenge:

We hope the school competition gets better publicity and more entries next year. For example W1AF was active in their own special event operation during CQP and only heard about this during the contest.

Another first for the 1999 CQP was a QRP category. Thanks to John, K3WWP, for persuading us to add this category and donating the special award. This year there were 25 QRP entries. They are noted in the results tables with a "Q" after their score.

As with the schools, we hope the word gets out to the QRP community to get into the next CQP.

Although the top scores were not record breakers themselves, a total of 21 new records were set this year, with 11 CA records and 10 state records falling. New records set this year are tabulated below.

New Records in California

Out-of-State new Records

The Statistics

The number of "soft logs," or logs submitted that can be read by computer (email or floppy) increased substantially from last year to 258 out of a total of 413 logs. Virtually all of the top scoring stations used computers to do logging and submitted soft logs. Only 90 logs (22%) were written by hand with pencil or pen. This is about the same as last year. Sixty-nine logs (17%) looked to be computer generated, but the owners didn’t see fit to send in a machine readable copy; only a print out. This is a definite improvement from last year.

How active was the ’99 CQP? There were 63,590 CW QSOs (37%) and 108,130 SSB QSOs (63%) reported in all the logs received. By analyzing the soft logs received, there appeared to be about 4,974 valid, non-unique call signs in use during CQP. These ranged from 4M3Y to ZS6TMG.

Log checking was tackled by AD6E, W6OAT, NF6S, W6ISO, N2ALE, N6DE, K6III, and AA6W. Log checking rules were established by the team as follows: Any simple copying error such as wrong NR, wrong QTH, or wrong call was penalized by reducing the score by ½ of a QSO. Double copying errors (e.g. wrong call and wrong NR) or worse were penalized by removing the QSO. The team used extensive search software to be as accurate as possible. Only QSOs that were either proven to be in error, or had a very highly probable error were reduced.

Overall, log accuracy was very good. Claimed scores were reduced by an average of 1.89% and resulted in changing the outcome of final standing in very few cases. The good news is that only five logs had greater than 10% score reductions due to errors. There were many "perfect" logs where no errors could be found. As one would expect, CW QSOs were reduced more than SSB QSOs; 1.86% compared to 0.82%.

My thanks go to the log checkers who put in many hours of effort to get these results out. Their efforts have made these results more credible. Anyone who submitted a "soft" log can get a check file that details each and every deduction. Please send your request to cqp@contesting.com.

A Personal Note

I’ve done County Expeditions in the past, but they have been M/M affairs. Its always good to have someone else around in case Murphy pays a visit. This year, I threw caution and the XYL to the wind and tried a S/O expedition to the Mendocino/Lake county line. To my amazement, everything worked out fine and I was able to not only get the highest score I’ve ever been able to achieve, but I set two county records in the process. The lessons learned from all those Field Days really paid dividends… despite the tangled 80 dipole.

It was interesting to see the effect of my county line operation on others. I spent considerable time answering "..uh, how do I log that?" On CW I know I stopped a couple of big gun runs … I smiled as I imagined them scratching their heads wondering how to log multiple counties. So far as I know, only WriteLog can handle this situation correctly.

This was quite an experience, and the story could take a few beers to tell, and if you find me at the DX convention I’ll be glad to tell the tale. I’m already thinking about the next challenge.

Check logs were received from: DL5WS, WA4MA, PY4WO, W1RAN, and KE4VEK.

Soapbox

This was my second CQP county expedition. The first, in 1997, was a solo effort to the Modoc and Lassen county lines at 6,000ft+ elevation on the opening day of hunting season. This year I set up by myself at the Colusa County Fairgrounds. There were no hunters, but I endured nine separate football games in two days at the adjacent stadium. I had AC power so the rig ran its full 100 watts out. I stuck up a 20 meter vertical, a dipole for 15, and the long wire for everything else. I tried often early in the contest to get a run going but California-based QRM forced me to change frequencies quite often. I gave up and went to S&P. Next year: same place, sling shots for higher antennas and an amplifier to hold my frequency. Heck... maybe someone will help me put up a temporary Yagi. I’m hooked!  (K6KYJ)

Claimed Results as of 10 December 1999:

California
US & Canada
DX

Bold entries in these tables indicate logs received by AD6E.  Please submit corrections to W0YK.