CQ - On-Line Confirmations

On-Line Confirmations CQ accepts electronic confirmations for all awards for contacts confirmed via eQSL.cc (limited to confirmations from eQSL "Authenticity Guaranteed" members). See details below excerpted from CQ magazine.

CQ also gives award credit for contacts confirmed via the ARRL's Logbook of the World (LoTW) system for the WPX and (effective April 2018) WAZ Awards. See update below. We anticipate adding LoTW support for additional CQ awards in the future.

Update on Logbook of the World and CQ Awards (4/18)

ARRL and CQ Magazine Announce Launch of CQ’s WAZ Award Support on ARRL's Logbook of the World

Newington, CT and Hicksville, NY – April 2, 2018 Officials from CQ magazine and ARRL, The national association for Amateur Radio®, are excited to announce the launch of support for CQ magazine’s Worked All Zones (WAZ) award program on ARRL’s Logbook of the World (LoTW) system, effective Monday, April 2, at 10:00 a.m. EDT (14:00 UTC).

The goal of the project was to create the proper technical support system to enable amateur radio operators to submit LoTW confirmations for WAZ credit and that has been accomplished, say CQ and ARRL officials.

“We are very pleased that participants in CQ's WAZ award program will now be able to use their LoTW confirmations for award credit,” said CQ Editor Rich Moseson, W2VU. “CQ WPX Award participants have found it very helpful and we are sure it will be equally helpful for those pursuing WAZ and its many variations.”

ARRL First Vice President Greg Widin, K0GW, concurred. “Users of LoTW have been telling us for some time that they would like to use QSLs from LoTW to apply for the WAZ award. They will now be able to select confirmations to be used for WAZ credit.”

Beta testing for bringing CQ magazine's WAZ award program into ARRL’s LoTW system had been underway since mid-December. Any problems in the implementation discovered by testers were corrected by the technical support team. Also, the documentation has been improved by feedback from the testers. At the same time, each LoTW user was given an additional WAZ account. Standard LoTW credit fees and separate CQ award fees will apply.

Logbook of the World is ARRL's electronic confirmation system for amateur radio contacts. It provides a confirmation when both stations in a contact submit their logs to the system and a match between the logs is confirmed. LoTW has supported the CQ WPX Award program since 2012.

CQ Announces eQSL
Electronic Confirmation Acceptance
CQ magazine will accept contact confirmations made on the eQSL.cc electronic confirmation system for its operating awards effective immediately, CQ Editor Rich Moseson, W2VU, and eQSL Founder and Webmaster Dave Morris, N5UP, announced in January.

There will be certain limitations and procedural differences for different awards, at least to start. Only confirmations from "Authenticity Guaranteed" members of eQSL will be accepted, and in accordance with existing eQSL policy, a membership level of bronze or higher is required in order to participate in award programs via eQSL. "This is the first time that CQ has formally accepted anything other than traditional paper QSL cards for its awards," said Moseson. "We have been working with Dave Morris and his team for several months to assure that the integrity of our awards programs will be protected and to create mechanisms to make it easy for both award applicants and award managers to use eQSL credits toward our awards. All of our award managers have been involved in this process and support this action." "We want to express our great appreciation to Dave and his team for their willingness to do whatever was necessary to make this agreement possible," Moseson added. "It has been a pleasure working with them and we look forward to a long-lasting relationship." "We are pleased to be adding CQ to the top of our list of amateur organizations that accept electronic QSLs," said Morris. "CQ has some of the most highly sought-after awards, and we have been working behind the scenes for years to create credit submission mechanisms that would ensure the integrity of their programs without introducing any additional labor for the award managers.

We believe the electronic QSL can drastically reduce costs, and the award application mechanisms we have developed will provide for more efficient processing at reduced cost for both the applicant and the award manager." Specific Requirements and Procedures Applicants for the CQ DX and CQ DX Field Awards must print out their eQSLs and submit them along with their traditional QSLs to a CQ checkpoint or to CQ DX Awards Manager Billy Williams, N4UF. eQSL has an automated process in place for applicants or CQ's Worked All Zones, WPX, and USA Counties awards.

N5UP explains how that will work for the applicant: "The applicant goes to the My Awards screen. He clicks on the particular award he wants to apply for. This brings up a list of the credits our system 'thinks' he is entitled to. There are checkboxes that allow him to check which ones he wants to use, and we automatically pre-fill one credit per category so he doesn't have to do anything if he wants to take the defaults. At the bottom of the screen are two buttons: 'Submit to CQ' and 'Print Paper Application'." The "submit" button will place all the selected QSOs into a file for the award manager to access, while the "print" button will generate a printed list to be submitted along with the traditional application.

PLEASE NOTE that ALL applicants must send the award fee payment to the CQ Award Manager, regardless of how the application is submitted. Some CQ award managers are now accepting PayPal; see individual award web pages for details. All awards will continue to accept traditional QSLs as well as eQSLs. For the USA-Counties Award (USACA), applicants must note on their record books (or printouts) whether each county has been confirmed traditionally (with an "X" to the right of the entry) or electronically (with an "E" next to the entry).

For more information on eQSL, visit https://www.eQSL.cc.

A PDF version of this can be downloaded here.

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