CQP Logo
58th Running Of The CQP!
1600 UTC October 7, 2023 to 2200 UTC October 8, 2023
CQP 2023 Begins:
















FAQ


















CLUB COMPETITION RULES

Last Update: 22-Jul-2022 at 1600 UTC

Note: You can download a PDF of these rules HERE.

Club Competition is highly encouraged in CQP.

I. Eligibility 

A. USA and Canadian clubs must be affiliated with either the ARRL or the RAC. DX clubs have no such requirement.

B. Participants must be bona fide members in good standing of their respective club prior to the start of CQP 2022.

C. Ineligible Clubs:  National organizations or clubs without a geographic basis, and which do not hold regular in-person or remote meetings.  Examples:  CWops, Long Island CW Club, FOC, QCWA, FISTS, SKCCC, DARC, JARL.

D. The Northern California Contest Club (NCCC), the CQP sponsoring organization, is ineligible to participate in the CQP Club Competition. NCCC members are encouraged to join other ARRL Affiliated Clubs and assist with their CQP Club Competition effort.

II. Club Circle 

A. The “club circle” for all participating clubs regardless of the number of logs submitted is defined as a 175 mile (280 km) radius. This is the same ARRL circle for large clubs. Participants must operate and reside within this club circle for their score to be added to a club's total, with three allowed exceptions:

B. Exception 1: California County Expeditions to sites outside the club's circle may still contribute points to a club's total. Example: K0EJ traveling from Tennessee to California and operating in a county expedition to Tuolumne County can apply his full score to the Tennessee Contest Group.

C. Exception 2: A club member who resides outside of the club's circle but who travels to a station within the circle, or operates in a California County Expedition, may contribute points to the club's total.

D. Exception 3: Mobile operations which travel outside of the club's circle can contribute points to the club's total. This applies for stations inside and outside California.

E. Points earned operating from a fixed location (i.e. non-Expedition, non-Mobile) outside the club circle cannot be claimed for club competition.

III. Club Category 

There are 5 categories of California clubs and 5 categories of non-California clubs. Categories are based on the number of logs received by each club. To commemorate California's stunning natural landscape, five U.S. National Parks located inside California were selected as club category names. Spanning California from the northwest to the southeast corners of the state, these national parks include forests, mountains, vast desert wilderness, islands in the Pacific Ocean, towering waterfalls, granite cliffs and the tallest trees on Earth. Just as these national parks are different from each other, so too are amateur radio clubs. CQP Club Category names attempt to cherish this fact and to represent different levels of club participation.

CQP Club Category Number of Logs per Club About 2019 Park Visitors
Yosemite 31+ Yosemite National Park 4,422,861
Joshua Tree 21-30 Joshua Tree National Park 2,988,547
Sequoia 11-20 Sequoia National Park 1,246,053
Redwood 6-10 Redwood National Park 504,722
Channel Islands 1-5 Channel Islands National Park 409,630

IV. Club Scoring 

Different clubs have different strengths and goals in the California QSO Party. Some clubs focus on activating as many member home stations as possible. Others prefer to head to the field as a club event or use CQP as a mentoring opportunity for HF operating on CW and SSB. All are valuable goals and will be recognized in the CQP club score tally.

A. Club Score = Score from logs submitted + Bonus Points

B. Score from logs submitted = The total aggregate score from all logs submitted by club members.

C. Bonus Points

  • 10,000 points for every log submitted with a unique callsign.
  • 50,000 points for every California County Expedition. Can be any CA County. Maximum of 50,000 bonus points per county.
  • 50,000 points for every California Mobile. 3 county minimum.
  • 50,000 points for at least one non-California Mobile. The intent of this bonus is to inspire the mobile stations active in other QSO Parties to use CQP as a test run, which in turn could provide more QSOs from an uncommon state/province. Hypothetical example: Minnesota Wireless Association member K0JP goes mobile to North Dakota for CQP as a test run in preparation for his mobile effort in the April 2022 North Dakota QSO Party. K0JP activates rare North Dakota in CQP while Minnesota Wireless Association benefits by collecting more points than may have been possible from K0JP's home station.
  • 50,000 points for at least one YL S/O log submitted.
  • 50,000 points for at least one Youth S/O log submitted.
  • 50,000 points for at least one New Contester S/O log submitted.
  • Note 1: See CQP Rules for definitions of a CQP Expedition, Mobile, YL, Youth and New Contester.
  • Note 2: Minimum 10 QSOs for all club bonuses above.
V. Awards

A total of TEN Visa gift cards will be awarded to the winners of each club category defined in Section III. 
FIVE $100 gift cards go to clubs inside California and FIVE $100 gift cards go to clubs outside of California.  

The intent of offering Visa gift cards to clubs is to encourage club leadership to do something special for its membership.  Examples we encourage would be to provide pizza or beverage to members at a club meeting, or to offer a door prize to a lucky club member attending a meeting, or to help defray the cost of a venue reservation or food truck at a club meeting.

VI. Club Affiliation 

It is very important to review your Cabrillo log file carefully in order to make sure your score is correctly applied to your club.

A. Single-Operator and Single-Operator-Assisted: Entrants may contribute their score to only one club. The club should be indicated in the CLUB: line of the Cabrillo log header. The club name should be spelled out and not fully abbreviated.

Example:
CLUB: Southern California Contest Club

B. Multi-Single and Multi-Multi: Entrants may choose to proportionately award points across station operators' different clubs. Please specify the desired percentage distribution in SOAPBOX lines of the Cabrillo log header.

Example for four operators in a M/M where three are members of Club A and one is a member of Club B:
SOAPBOX: CLUB-SPLIT-BEGIN
SOAPBOX: 75% Mother Lode DX/Contest Club, 25% Redwood Empire DX Association
SOAPBOX: CLUB-SPLIT-END

If these SOAPBOX lines are not entered in the Multi-Single or Multi-Multi Cabrillo log, then all points from the Multi-Op effort will be applied to only one club specified in the CLUB: line of the Cabrillo.

Example:
CLUB: West Valley ARA

VII. Verification 

A. The CQP organizing team reserves the right to request a roster from club officials to verify the eligibility of its scores and bonus points.

B. The ARRL Club Roster Eligibility List will be checked first before contacting club officials. It is not required for clubs to submit their eligibility list to the ARRL.


All NCCC web sites are hosted by QTH.com.  Web design and maintenance by K6MM