2026 Colorado QSO Party Date, Rules & Host Changes

Feature Requests
1

Good afternoon, WRL

I’m not too familiar in what manner WRL supports QSO parties, but I’m providing the below information as an advisement to recent changes.

Please be advised that the host of the Colorado QSO Party for 2026 has transitioned from the Pikes Peak Radio Amateur Association (PPRAA) to The Grand Mesa Contesters of Colorado (GMCC): https://grandmesa.org/

The GMCC will also be the host for the foreseeable future. The CO QSO PARTY’s (CO QP) new website hosted by the GMCC is as follows: www.coloradoqsoparty.org.

Starting in 2026, the CO QP will be held on the second Saturday in September each year.** For 2026, the CO QP hours of operation will be from 14:00 UTC on Saturday, September 12, 2026, through 03:59 UTC on Sunday September 13, 2026.**

The CO QSO PARTY’s rules have also been substantially revised. These rules have been posted to the CO QP website along with the applicable CO County abbreviation and section multiplier lists. The GMCC is currently reaching out to all known participating logging software developers to ensure the CO QP rules are updated.

Your assistance is truly appreciated. Please reach out to me directly with any questions or concerns. Have a great day.

Mike-W1NV, on behalf of the GMCC.

2

@W1NV Thanks for the information. We work with the state qso party guys usually directly but we always have the contests included on the contest page for all the state QSO parties. I usually set them up on the contest page a month or so before they start. Currently all of them are on there through the end of April. I’ll make sure to get this added and pull the data from the link you provided.

Thanks & 73
Brad K4AZE

3

Thanks Brad! It’s appreciated. I was tasked as the messenger for the GMCC on this one. I know it’s early, but there’s been a lot of moving parts with the project. Thanks again. - Mike

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4

@W1NV Of Course!!! no problem at all. We’ll make sure its all squared away well before the party!

5

@W1NV Hey Mike,

Just a heads up, I went ahead and got the contest added (WAAYYY ahead of time :wink: ) for you.

Let me know if you need anything else!

Thanks & 73
Brad K4AZE

6

Ha!! Thanks a ton Brad! Really appreciate the assistance!

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7

Good afternoon, All

UPDATE: Colorado QP Rules & Scoring Change - September 2026

I wanted to further advise that there was a very recent rule change by committee that will very likely affect how your program currently scores the Colorado QSO Party. This change was made to properly align the scoring of the CO QP to most, if not all, existing state QSO parties. If you are willing and able to adjust WRL once more to reflect this change prior to commencement of the CO QP in September 2026, it would be truly appreciated. Hopefully this change will not be too much of a lift.

Below is the relevant change made (and current wording) to rule # 12 which affects the participants final score:

Final Score. Final score equals the total number of QSO points (not counting any bonus points) times the total number of multipliers. Any bonus points are then added to that product. For mixed entries, QSO points and multipliers from both modes are combined into a single total before multiplying; CW and Phone are not scored separately. Multipliers remain per mode (Rule 10), so a county worked on both CW and Phone counts as two multipliers.

For reference/context purposes, the older wording of the rule was as follows:

"Final Score. Final score equals the number of QSO points (not counting any bonus points) times the number of multipliers. To that product we add any bonus points. For mixed entries, CW and Phone QSOs and multipliers are calculated separately and then summed.”

The entire, current QSO party rules can be viewed at the the CO QP website link: Rules – Colorado QSO Party

There was also a tweak to the “out-of-State Stations” entry categories wording, annotated below. I don’t expect this to affect your development of your logging program, but I’ll include it nonetheless out of potential interest.

“Out-of-State Stations: Entries are categorized by mode (CW, Phone, or Mixed) and by power (QRP, Low Power, or High Power). Out-of-state stations may operate fixed, mobile, or portable, but are not classified separately by station type.”

As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to reach out directly. Thank you very much in advance!

73, Mike - W1NV

8

@W1NV Hey Mike,

We dont currently have accurate scoring setup in WRL. With that said this is a future enhancement we have been slowly working on but have been getting pulled away for various other higher priority tasks (Field Day, WRTC, etc, etc), however we are working on it in addition to several other MAJOR changes to the contesting and special event side of WRL. So it will be coming soon. Currently the scoring is just 1 point per qso. We do have some flexibility with that as it sits now but that is generally how it is for the leaderboards in the contests. Since this QSO party is in September we might have enough time to get all the contesting changes finished up and rolled out before then, which would allow us to set the scoring however is needed. Just full transparency here.

Thanks & 73
Brad K4AZE

9

@K4AZE Totally understand. Thanks Brad!

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