K5ZD Announcements, Rules

Rule changes for 2025

The world’s largest and most popular contesting operating event — the CQ WW — is coming up in less than two weeks! Some traveling operators have already arrived at their stations or will be leaving this week. Based on the 30-day solar cycle, it appears we will have good conditions, which will make for an incredible operating experience for everyone to enjoy!

As a reminder, we made a few changes to the rules for 2025 as follows:

* The Explorer category has been eliminated and replaced with the Multi-op Distributed category, with the same rules as the CQ WPX contest.

* Audio recordings are now required for both Top-5 non-assisted *and* assisted Singe-op entries. There is no change to the audio recording requirement itself.

* Entrants, on request of the contest committee, will be required to supply descriptions of their station layout including equipment, antennas, amplifiers, switching, interlocks, etc.

Please visit https://cqww.com/rules.htm for the complete rules and other great information!  Clear your calendars — this is going to be one of the best WW contests ever!

73, John, K1AR
CQ WW Contest Director

K5ZD Announcements

Entries by Category

Every year there is a discussion about what categories are growing in popularity, when assisted will outnumber unassisted, and so on.  We have added a new page to cqww.com that can provide some data for those discussions.

https://cqww.com/stats-by-cat.htm

This page shows the number of entries by category and year based on the selected geography (world, continent, country).

K5ZD Announcements

Policy Change – Russia/Belarus Participation in all CQ WW Contests

As you may be aware, it has been the policy of CQ magazine for over two years to eliminate awards eligibility for Russian and Belarus entries in all CQ sponsored events. This requirement was never incorporated into the rules for any of the WW contests; it was limited to a simple policy statement. 

What is most notable at this time, is that the WW contests are one of the few competitions still maintaining this position (or similar). As a result, and after consultation with our WW Contest Directors and WWROF leadership, we will be changing the current policy, effective immediately, and returning all of our contests to normal operation.

This change will take effect with the WW RTTY contest this weekend (Sept 28-29, 2024) and all other WW contests going forward.

73, John, K1AR
Director, CQ WW Contest