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The newly announced contest means 23 different states - almost half of the lower 48 - will have a QSO Party going at the same time, as the seven states of W0 will be added to the New England QSO Party, the Indiana QSO Party and the 7th Call Area QSO Party.
"The ZQP is a new breed of Ham radio contest gents. Serious, We in no way are trying to compete with NEQP or 7qp or any other," wrote lead organizer Joe Leto W0IW.
The states of Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota, North Dakota, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri and Minnesota offer 685 counties amongst them, making what some immediately called a mini-NAQP when combined with the other QSO parties that weekend.
As of now though, the exchange for the Zero-QP would be much different than the other state QSO parties that weekend, and would not use counties as the basis for multipliers, though organizers are already reviewing that decision.
But the date chosen for the Zero-QP is pushing at least one contest to find another weekend, as the MARAC QSO Party - which is based on counties - will likely shift to later in the year.
"The MARAC QSO Party is probably going to move to July," wrote Mike Fatchett W0MU, who organizes the county hunters contest, as the last weekend in July seems to be the likely choice.
"WARC bands have been traditionally used as a selling point as a place where non-contesters can go to avoid the fray during contests," wrote ARRL Contest Branch Manager Sean Kutzko KX9X, just hours after the contest was announced.
"By allowing QSOs to be made on WARC bands during this QSO Party, the contesting community as a whole will be put in a very bad position."
Organizers quickly backtracked and removed the WARC bands from the Zeroland test, though they have kept on a rule that allows stations to self-spot themselves during the contest.
"All stations are allowed to use spotting assistance, but self spotting will only be allowed on 10m and 160m." states the rules, making the Zero-QP possibly the first contest to encourage self-spotting on the DX cluster, a move that generally is seen a reason for disqualification in other contests.
One other contest where that is not the case is the Iowa QSO Party, which was run for a second time this year by the Ottumwa Amateur Radio Club, which allows self-spotting on all bands:
"Spotting on the packet clusters or via internet is permissible, including self-spotting," reads the Iowa QSO Party rule.
Zero-QP organizer Joe Leto W0IW was particularly aggravated by a rules change in the Iowa QSO Party that took away the Multi-Multi category, something he has restored in this new test.
"It's sure nice to get a multi multi even back on the calendar after losing one this year," Leto wrote in an email last week, referring to the IAQP.
In emails announcing the contest on the CQ-Contest reflector and to others in the contest community, Zero-QP organizers have repeatedly cited low turnout for the Iowa QSO Party as a reason to start this new test.
"When our own states Iowa QSO party barely activates 1/2th of the 99 counties that are in Iowa, it occurred to us that we could hold a QSO party," said Leto.
The 12-hour contest would debut on May 7, 2011 - Kentucky Derby Day to some contesters out there.
You can find the rules and more at the Zeroland QSO Party web site.
