CQP and Oceania DX SSB
The California QSO Party overlaps with the Oceania DX Phone contest and the
exchanges are largely compatible, so CQP participants are encouraged to also
enter OCDX. OCDX Phone runs for 24 hours, 0600 UTC October 5 through 0600 UTC
October 6, 2024 (Pacific Time: 11PM Friday through 11PM Saturday).
Some tips on entering OCDX:
- The exchange is signal report and serial number. If you're working an Oceania station, please give them a signal report. For example if calling a CQ'ing Oceania station, you might say "59 number 123, Monterey County", so the exchange covers both contests. They can ignore the county if they aren't entering CQP. (No worries if your CQP logger does not provide a place to record signal reports; see below.)
- There's no need to track separate serial numbers for the two contests; just give your regular CQP serial number for the OCDX contact and log their number as given. The OCDX contest is perfectly fine receiving a log with gaps in serial numbers as long as they're unique.
- Remember that Hawaii is in Oceania, so you can get more OC contacts than you might think.
Club competition
OCDX is awarding a plaque to the North American club with
the highest number of qualifying entries. A qualifying entry is one with at
least 25 valid contacts. You can see detailed rules at the North
America Club Plaque link. If you want to participate for your club, you
should submit an OCDX Phone entry for the CQP weekend and also consider
participating in the following week's OCDX CW contest (which is a separate
entry—and if you get at least 25 contacts in both, it counts twice for your
club).
Note for NCCC members: please use 'Northern California Contest Club' for your OCDX entry even if you used a
different club for CQP. See below.
Log Converter
To make entering OCDX Phone easier, Bruce Horn WA7BNM has
made a converter available. (Thanks, Bruce!) Simply submit your CQP log at this link and it
will extract the OCDX entries, put them in a format suitable for that contest,
and put you on the OCDX submission form with the draft Cabrillo file. The form
also includes an optional field to override the Club (for example, for the NCCC
scenario above), otherwise it will pass through the club you used in CQP.
Please use the full name of the club in this field.
(The log converter lists '59' for all signal reports since
those are not available in the CQP Cabrillo log. The OCDX committee has
confirmed that their log checking does not compare signal reports, and that they
have no issue if the signal report in the log doesn't match what was exchanged
on the air.)
OCDX contacts prior to CQP start
If you make contacts in OCDX prior to the start of the CQP
at 1600Z, here are two suggested approaches (assuming CQP is the primary
contest you're working):
- The simplest method is to use your CQP logger
for the duration of both contests, and use the log converter above to create
your OCDX log. This has the advantage of keeping your serial numbers straight and
only having one log to deal with. The disadvantage is that your mult tracking and claimed score for CQP may be off, but
this won't impact your actual CQP entry. The CQP log checker will ignore the
entries outside the contest time period with no penalty. When you submit your
CQP log, you will get a warning that some entries are outside the contest
period, but it will accept the others.
- If you expect to make a larger number of OCDX
contacts before CQP starts or you just want to be more precise about your CQP
claimed score, you can use a logger configured for OCDX for the first part of
that contest, then when CQP starts, set that aside and log for CQP. Make sure
you can get your CQP logger to start your serial numbers where you left off in
OCDX so there are no overlaps. After the contest, create a Cabrillo file from
both loggers, submit the CQP one as usual to CQP, use the Log Converter above on
the CQP log to get the QSO lines for the overlap period, and combine the QSO
lines from your OCDX log with those from the log converter (keeping whichever
Cabrillo header you prefer). This is more complex, but will keep your CQP
claimed score, mult tracking, etc. correct for CQP.
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