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A year after controversy over the use of internet "chat rooms" by operators to faciliate contest contacts, the CQ 160 CW contest is back, with a host of new rules for 2009.
"I am hoping for a big turnout," says the new CQ 160 contest director Andy Blank N2NT, who spearheaded the series of contest changes.
One of the most obvious is when the contest starts, as it now begins and ends two hours earlier, at 2200z, an effort to do away with what was basically a third evening of operating for some stations in North America.
"This represents a shift back to the old starting times," Blank told radio-sport.net.
"We responded to requests and polls, trying to balance out times for all entrants," Blank added.
One of those who wanted the time change was Milt Jensen N5IA, who won last year's CQ 160 SSB from VP6DX.
"There is no doubt that the extra hours of darkness in a 3rd evening were a tremendous asset to those stations in the eastern 3rd of the US and eastern 1/2 of Canada," Jensen said.
"If I had my druthers, I would back it off still one more hour and start it at 2100Z."
Jensen proved last year that you don't have to be in Europe, Africa or the US and Canada to win this event, as he was the only op to go over one million points in the SSB leg from Ducie Island in the South Pacific.
As for the CW leg in 2008, the winner was Jim Sullivan W7EJ, who made the trek to his contest station CN2R in Morocco.
A repeat from there does not seem to be in the offing in 2009, as Sullivan's web page shows his next CN2R effort will be this year's Russian DX test instead.
Also out of the single operator mix will be Jeff Briggs K1ZM, who will be running a multi-op from VY2ZM this year, leaving the Single Operator chase wide open.
This year's CQ 160 will also feature a new category, as contest organizers have established a new Single Operator Assisted class that will allow the use of spotting clusters and CW Skimmer.
One thing that will not be allowed - as a result of controversy surrounding the 2008 CQ 160 contests - is the use of internet chat rooms and other web resources to coordinate contacts.
"The use of chat rooms is explicitly forbidden in the rules," said Blank, who made that one of his priority changes.
"We cannot stop its use by casual operators, but anyone using it as a contest aid will be disqualified."
The change was demanded by many operators after the 2008 contests, who argued the chat rooms gave some an unfair advantage.
Also making waves is that the 160 meter DX window is no longer mentioned in the rules.
"All entrants are encouraged to spread out as much as possible," the rules state.
"There was no mention of the window on purpose," said Blank N2NT on the CQ-Contest reflector.
"The activity in the contest has become so large that 5 khz reserved for DX qsos is just not practical."
One other note about this year's CQ 160 contests is the date of the SSB test, which is later than usual because of a calendar anamoly in February 2009.
You can see the contest dates and more about the rules changes in the right hand column of this story.
CN2R (W7EJ) - Single Op High Power
TA3D - Single Op Low Power
OK1IW - Single Op QRP
CT9M - Multi Op
The contest begins at 2200z instead of 0000z.
"The start and end times of the contests have been shifted two hours earlier in response to requests from the 160 contesting community," says the note on the CQ 160 web site.
The exchange for stations outside of the US and Canada is different.
Stations in W/VE still send their US state or Canadian province. All other stations will send RS(T) and CQ Zone, just like in CQ WW DX.
"Remember, zones are not multipliers," said CQ 160 Director Andy Blank N2NT. "Just a more uniform exchange than arbitrary country abbreviations."
There is a new Single Operator Assisted Class now in CQ 160
It used to be that the use of the DX Cluster would lump single ops into the Multi-op category, but now they will battle in Assisted. That category will also allow the use of the controversial CW decoding program known as CW Skimmer.
There is now a 40 hour Multi Op time limit
While single ops still have a 30 hour limit, now multis must observe a 40 hour maximum operating period. "Off times must be a minimum of 30 minutes in length for all categories," read the rules.
New rules that permit some types of remote operation
The new remote operating rules are a first for the CQ 160 contest.
Check out the details on those and all of the rule changes for 2009 at the CQ 160 web site.
2009 CQ 160 CW Contest
2200z January 23 - 2200z January 25;
more on the rules at the
CQ 160 web site.
