Death of a QSO Party
Sad news…
The Mid-Atlantic QSO Party will not occur this year and, perhaps, ever again. Their web site…
…reports the news…
“We held out hope until the last possible moment for a continuation of the MAQP, especially in light of the success of other area-wide QSO contests, but due to flat participation and more importantly, a lack of support and help doing all the work the contest entails despite dozens of pleas for assistance, we regret to announce that there will be no 2008 or future Mid-Atlantic QSO Parties.”
I worked the MAQP in 2003 and 2004. I enjoyed the idea of a multi-state regional QSO Party. However, times change.
What happened?
Here are a couple of possibilities…
- State QSO Parties seem to be more popular on their own merits alleviating the need to consolidate few operators from many states into one large regional event.
- Hams are real people with real lives and can participate in only so many events in a year resulting in hams gravitating towards the more popular events.
- Events like the Virginia QSO Party have exploded in recent years thanks to the leadership of the Sterling Park Amateur Radio Club (SPARC).
- Virginians given a choice between MAQP and VAQP will certainly pick VAQP the way things are at the moment.
It is well worth studying what happened to MAQP to learn what we can from the rise and fall of a once popular Mid-Atlantic QSO Party. We will miss you MAQP.
Is it possible that another contributing factor is that nobody feels ownership of a regional QSO party? I know in our State, there is a great deal of enthusiasm because everybody will be lining up to work VA stations. A regional QSO party sounds like a good idea, but maybe operators don’t feel like this is their personal “special” event.
There was no compelling demand for a mid-Atlantic QSOP. The two regional QSOPs are the New England QSOP, which brings together small states with few counties, and gives county-hunters a reason to participate. And there’s the 7-area QSOP, which groups together states with lots of counties, but few operators. The mid-Atlantic states have neither of these issues — each state can hold its own QSOP (perhaps with the exception of DE) and draw a crowd from within state and beyond. It was a ill-conceived idea from the start.