Well, I think there were good, and possibly valid, reasons for the rules
to be made the way they are. There is no reason why we should not
recognize any station who works all Ga counties in a GQP regardless of
mode. Correct me if I am wrong, but the Fl QSO Party counts multipliers
per mode as we do. In fact, we copied our rules from them when we
re-started the GQP in 1999. But, they recognize the first station to
work all their counties in a FQP regardless of mode. So, there is
recognition for a "clean sweep" even if some contacts are on CW and some
are on phone.
The reason for making mulipliers per mode was to encourage more people
to be more versatile and to work both modes so that no mode got left
out. It might tend to discourage sole mode people and that may be the
reason that I think FQP now recognizes single modes, CW and SSB, and
mixed for awards. If so, that is a change since 1999. I would hate to
discourage folks like W3DYA, K4IR, W4BQF and others from operating since
they don't want to work SSB. Likewise, I don't want to discourage folks
like W4AMP, N3AWS/M, KT4ZB and others from participating because they
don't want to work CW. Maybe we could look at the recognition system of
the FL QSO Party. Still, if you work mixed modes in FL, you get the
mult on each mode and that adds an element of interest that we would
otherwise lack. If we hadn't had that in the rules, we (Jeff and I)
probably wouldn't have made nearly 500 SSB QSOs in the FL QSO Party last
year.
I feel more strongly about the multiplier situation. If you allow
unlimited DX countries as multipliers, you encourage people to get on
and work nothing but DX. It used to really frustrate me when the annual
New Hampshire QSO Party was running and W1OHA (hope I got that call
right) would come on 20 CW every year and call for DX only, depriving me
of the chance to work his county in that contest. Some QSO Parties
allow for DX countries to count for two or three extra multpliers, but
no more. I wouldn't strongly oppose such a change.
Allowing counties as multipliers tends to turn a QSO party inward.
Operation when bands are open for long skip disappears. For example, no
activity is heard above 40 meters. Buddies work each other and the
out-of-state stations often don't get a word in edgewise. Think South
Carolina QSO Party. And others. I strongly oppose allowing GA counties
as multipliers for GA stations. This is for GA to work the world. QSO
points should be enough incentive for us to work each other without
encouraging us to work almost only each other.
73,
John, K4BAI.
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