As we receive repeated questions we will put answers here. Please send questions to us at atlcanqp@gmail.com

1. Why Counties/Divisions?

Provincial/State QSO parties often use some geographic scheme to differentiate contacts between various areas in provinces/states. Some out of region operators are looking to hunt counties. Two provincial radio associations or clubs (NS and PEI) offer Work All Counties awards for their province. We considered other multipliers, such as Federal Electoral Districts. These are harder to map and determine exactly where you might be operating from.
The ACQP does not provide multipliers for AC stations working other AC stations. The goal is to work as many stations as possible, from both in and out of region for AC stations.

2. Who is the ACQP?

The ACQP was originated by three individuals in the fall of 2024. VE1RGO – Stuart Hayes, VE1RPX – Rich Peirik, VE9CZ – Peter Siemsen. In December two additional amateurs joined the team, Michael Ryan — VO1OP, and Stuart Crawford — VE9CF. The idea of an Atlantic QSO Party is not a new one and a previous Maritime QSO Party was run by the Maritime Contest Club in 2012, 2013.

3. Can I help / get involved?

Yes. We are looking for local contacts in each of the four provinces of the Atlantic Canada QP region to act as Provincial Leads/Captains to help us attract more in region ACQP operators. Also advising us on rules and helping be local area experts. Please send an email to atlcanqp@gmail.com

4. What loggers support ACQP?

Currently support for ACQP has been created for N1MM (as of March 11, 2025). DXLog has also added support for ACQP (as of March 10, 2025). additionally, both Ham2K POLO (KI2D) and World Radio League (WRL) have indicated interest in providing support in their excellent loggers before our contest.

There will not be support in N3FJP for ACQP this year. We are hopeful future versions of N3FJP will support ACQP and other contests.

5. How do I get support in N1MM for ACQP

When creating a new contest log in an N1MM database choose QSOPARTY and in the RIGHT corner of the new contest dialog box you will see a pulldown for QSOPARTY that should be 7QP, change this to AC (Atlantic Canada QP) for our ruleset.

6. What about CY0, CY9, VE0 or /MM Calls?

The callsign is not the basis of the score, any station in the region can participate. Our ACQP scoring looks for an exchange indicating one of the 47 land counties or divisions of the provinces in Atlantic Canada (AC).

AC stations are rewarded with a mult by band for the first qso in each province in AC they get along with the remaining provinces and US states (not incentivized to work AC stations to get mults)

Non AC stations are rewarded with a mult by band and mode for each of the 47 counties/divisions in the AC provinces.

CY0 and CY9 are potentially solvable. In both cases permission is needed to operate or even go there. At least a tour for CY0 and prior registration for CY9. There are no special event callsigns issued to date for 2025 or as far as we are aware dxpeditions scheduled for either location.

We did not specify or provide a mult for working VE0 or /MM that are not in port in a county. We are in contact with the folks operating the two museum ships with the VE0MMA and VE0CNM calls in HRM. Those will use the NSHRM exchange (Nova Scotia Halifax Regional Municipality) as their exchange.

VE0 and /MM stations are a little different. For 2025 we will ask these stations to pick a home “port” (county/division) for their exchange and use that for the duration of the contest. If the MOBILE category is chosen please choose multiple “port” counties and activate and log them as transit is made. It will be on the operator to be within realistic distance of “home port” operating position to claim a county. Suggesting the 12 nautical mile limit as recognized by this document, Defining Canada’s Maritime Zones .

Based upon further input from participants we may review or modify this for subsequent years of the event.