There will be a couple of rules changes for the New England QSO Party this year and we wanted you to be the first to know the details.
- We will allow self-spotting. On CW (and RTTY) this is already happening with the Reverse Beacon Network so there will be little need for it. But with low power and especially QRP entrants this may help to boost their scores. On SSB the change should make a difference and generate a lot more opportunity for QSOs. As it is, CW QSOs outnumber SSB by about three to one, so we expect an increase in SSB activity.
- There is a new multi-multi category. Now that we regularly have 500-1000 entrants, there have been requests for multi-multi entries. Most of the time, QSO parties tend to stick to 20 and 40 meters but with many more sunspots these days, action is expected on 15 and 10m.
- Change county abbreviations from county-state to state-county . This aligns the NEQP with other state QSO parties. MIDMA changes to MAMID, and ROCNH to NHROC, as examples. As always, logs using the reverse format are still accepted.
- Change in CT county names. There are now 9 instead of 8 multipliers in CT. Counties are now called planning regions, based on a US Census change in 2022. It’s a long story – some boundaries have changed. This is complicated because there was really little public announcement followed by the local media, so most state residents really still think in terms of county boundaries even though county government hasn’t existed for 64 years, except on maps!
Major logging software authors have been notified – new N1MM+ versions of the NEWE module (for W1 stations) and IN7QNE module (for non-W1s) should be released this week.
Results from the 2023 NEQP have been completed and the web site will be updated in the next week or two. Thanks for your patience!
– Tom/K1KI
I don’t understand why some feel it necessary to fix something that’s not broken!
1. I needlessly struggled with my log due to “PRORI” no longer being valid this year as the required log format was changed by “RIPRO”. I almost gave up converting my log to Cabrillo this year due to this change, and wasted too much time troubleshooting error messages and modifying my log to accommodate this needless change!
2. CT County logging change confusion ended up being easily resolved by simply not working/logging any CT stations at all. I operated S&P so was able to avoid working a number of CT stations, but I did have to apologize to a few CT stations I half-worked after I learned they were in CT and I had to tell them I was sorry but I wasn’t logging them due to this change. In the end CT stations were effectively boycotted, as will stations in other states for which such a silly needless change is implemented.