The 2018 Virginia QSO Party was held during the weekend of 17-18 March 2018.


Plaques and certificates were mailed on Friday, 8 June. This completes all activities for the 2018 Virginia QSO Party.  See you next year.

Awards Ceremony: The Virginia QSO Party Awards Ceremony was held at the Manassas ham fest on Sunday, 3 June, at 0900.  The results of the VQP were reviewed and plaques were presented.  The briefing contains statistics about the VQP and identified the plaque awardees.  Pictures of the ceremony also highlights the plaque winners.  Certificates and plaque not picked up at the ceremony will be mailed to the recipients by the end of June.

Certificate.  This year, the Fauquier Amateur Radio Association designed the certificate.  The chief artist was John, KX4O.  A certificate will be provided to all who submitted a log.

Log Metadata MultiOps:  A list of the operators of the multi-operations stations.  Any corrections of questions should be emailed to [email protected].

Log Metadata:  The log metadata file (dated 19 April  20 April  21 April 22 April 23 April  5 May 20 June 2018) contains a listing of all the logs (currently 405 406 407 409 logs)  submitted with other data such as scores, names, addresses, club names,  and other information accumulated from the logs.  This is posted to allow VQP participants to review of the data for the purpose of correcting errors and omissions and will be updated as new or revised information becomes available.  Any questions should be emailed to [email protected].

Soapbox and Post-Party Comments.  Soapbox gathered from electronic logs and some tidbits and comments from emails.

If you have suggestions to improve the Virginia QSO Party, please email them to [email protected].
 
Call History file:  Mike, N4CF, generated a call history file from the largest logs submitted last year.  Here is the URL of the page on my website that has a link to it, and instructions for using it: <http://n4cf.mdodd.com/vaqp-ch.html>

VaQP APRS Mobile County Tracker:  (http://www.k1ra.us/vaqp-aprs/)  Andy, K1RA, encourages VQP mobile stations to run APRS w/ GPS with on 2m on 144.390 MHz or via smartphone apps such as APRSDroid.  Stations wishing to participate to allow visual tracking of their real-time location during the contest should email Andy at [email protected] with the call sign they will use on APRS.  This tool will help fixed stations find and track those valuable 3 pt mobile stations once they enter new counties or independent cites.

Spotting Network:  John, KX4O is providing the VQP spotting network once again this year.   http://www.qsoparty.com/

Announced Operations:  This is a list of announced operations in Virginia.  We hope to get coverage of all the counties and independent cities identified early.  If you are planning on operating a station in Virginia, please send an email with the details and a picture to [email protected]. 

Plaques and Sponsors:  We will have 27 plaques this year, unchanged from last year.  We have sponsors for all the plaques for 2018.  Most recently, the new sponsors are:
   Jeff Fuller, WB8UIE, volunteered to sponsor the Virginia Mobile Multiple Operator plaque.
   Directive Systems and Engineering (http://directivesystems.com/) volunteered to sponsor the Multiple Operator Multiple Transmitter plaque.

Please note that many plaques do not have many or have no entries at all.  The plaques with the least number of entries are:

Plaque	No. of entries
Single Operator Youth  (18 and younger)	0
Single Operator Young Adult (19-24)	1
Digital plaque	2
Expedition plaque	2
Virginia Single Operator CW QRP	3
Outside Virginia Single Operator CW QRP	3
Multiple operator multiple Transmitters	6
Multiple Operator Single Transmitter	7

Certificate:  The certificate for the 2018 Virginia QSO Party will be designed by the Fauquier Amateur Radio Association (FARA).  This club is one of the sponsors of the VQP and is one of the more active clubs in the Party. We have also redesigned the certificate to allow more space to commemorate activities in the State of Virginia.

VQP Briefing: (PDF format ~10 MB ) A presentation suitable for club meetings on the Virginia QSO Party. Includes rules, Party statistics, descriptions of certificates.  This will be updated aperiodically to reflect new or changed information. Last updated on 12 15 16 20 24 February 6 March 2018.
 
VQP Contest Rules.  ( html format,   MSWord format,   PDF format )  There is one rule change for the 2018 Virginia QSO Party.  The ending time on Saturday has been extended by two (2) hours from 18 March 0200 to 18 March 0400 UTC (i.e., 1000 AM to 1200 Midnight local time in Virginia).  This was in response to the most requested change, i.e., longer duration on Saturday to allow stations more opportunity to contact the west coast of the US on 40/80M.

Contest Logging Programs.  Logging programs designed for the Virginia QSO Party always help. We accept any logs, but logs submitted electronically and compliant with any cabrillo format are preferred. The following logging programs have been used in the past and they have been modified to support the Virginia QSO Party.  We re-score all logs submitted, so it is important to ensure your log contains all the required information.
    * N1MM Logger http://www.n1mm.com.
    * Scott & Kimberly, N3FJP & KA3SEQ Amateur Contact Log  http://www.n3fjp.com/.
    * WriteLog http://www.writelog.com/. 
    * WA7BNM Web2Cabrillo http://www.b4h.net/cabforms/   A manual entry cabrillo file generator.  Easy to use for those with QSOs not already in a cabrillo file.  Go to the web site.  Select Virginia QSO Party.  Fill in the forms.  In the last step, the program e-mails a Cabrillo file to [email protected], with a copy to the submitter's e-mail address. 

Virginia Counties and Independent Cities: 95 counties and 38 independent cities (html format or MS Document or PDF format).

Paper Log Summary Sheets: (.pdf or .doc) Remains unchanged from last year. Used to record header information for paper logs. This form is not required for cabrillo formatted electronic logs.

Worked All Virginia Award:  The "Worked All Virginia" award is offered by the Rappahannock Valley Amateur Radio Club. 

Presentation Offer and Schedule: SPARC will give a presentation on the Virginia QSO Party to any group in Virginia.

Planning Calendar: The calendar is available for review.

Comments, questions, and recommendations should be emailed to [email protected].