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CQP Multipliers

CA County Multipliers for Out-of-State Participants (58)

USA/Canada Multipliers for California Participants (58)

DX: all other locations – DX is not a mult, but QSO credit for California participants.

Multiplier “Rules” California QSO Party (CQP)

First and foremost we want the multipliers to be “easy to remember” and somewhat “mistake proof” for both casual contesters and experienced contesters.  

Rules for the 4-character “County Multipliers for Out-of-State Entries” (58 CA counties)

Use the first 4 characters of the county name to make them unique

• This rule is broken for Contra Costa (CCOS) and Los Angeles (LANG)

• Marin (MARN) and Mariposa (MARP) counties are not unique in 4 characters

• If the county name is one of the 10 counties that start with “San” or “Santa” abbreviate that part to a single “S”

Rules for the 2-character “USA/Canada Multipliers for California Entries” (USA 50, Canada 8)

Use the US and Canada postal abbreviation

• USA - see http://www.usps.com/ncsc/lookups/abbreviations.html 

• Canada - see http://canadaonline.about.com/library/bl/blpabb.htm

• In three cases several postal abbreviations are grouped into a single “mult”

  • MD - Maryland and District of Columbia

  • NT - Northern Territories of NT, NU, YT (Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Yukon)

  • MR - MaRitimes and Newfoundland and Labrador provinces of NB, NL, NS, PE (New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island)

Historical Note from W6OAT

Information from Rusty, W6OAT, on how the 8 Canadian mults were set up when he revamped the California QSO Party (CQP) rules in 1975:

“Back in the mid-1970s, there were eight Canadian multipliers in the ARRL SS contest. They were MAR-NFLD, QUE, ONT, MAN, SASK, ALTA, BC and VE8. Everybody was familiar with these eight and they were non-controversial.  Those eight, plus 50 USA states worked out to 58 mults. That seemed to correspond nicely with California's 58 county mults.  The balance between in-state and out-of-state multipliers just seemed like a neat thing to have, so we wrote the CQP rules that way.”

Common Multiplier Logging Errors California QSO Party (CQP)

There are common multiplier abbreviation problems that can potentially result in losing points. One type of problem is not entering enough characters to clearly specify a unique California county. Here are some common problems we have seen over the years.

County abbreviation problems

MON – This is an ambiguous abbreviation for:

• MONT  Monterey

• MONO  Mono

MAR – This is an ambiguous abbreviation for:

• MARN Marin

• MARP  Mariposa

SB – This is an ambiguous abbreviation for:

• SBEN  San Benito

• SBER San Bernardino

• SBAR  Santa Barbara
  Note: SB is the abbreviation of the ARRL section “Santa Barbara”. This is fine for ARRL Field Day, but CQP is about California counties and “SB” is not quite enough letters to clearly distinguish it from the other possibilities.

State abbreviation problems

AL:  AL  Alabama state, not ALAM Alameda county or ALPI Alpine county
LA:  LA  Louisiana state, not LANG Los Angeles county or LASS Lassen county
NV:  NV  Nevada state, not  NEVA  Nevada county
OR:  OR  Oregon state, not ORAN Orange county

DX QSOs

DX QSO’s do not count for non-California participants. 

For California participants, DX QSO’s count for QSO points but not multiplier credit. There are no DX multipliers.  United States commonwealths, territories and possessions do not count as multipliers.  The preferred QTH abbreviation for any DX station is “DX”.  You may instead log the ARRL DXCC country abbreviation (e.g. G for England, DL for Germany, etc), but simply “DX” is easier for you.