Announcing the CQ Millenium Award

Announcing the CQ Millenium Award

Here's a once-in-a-thousand years opportunity to have fun on the air and get some cool "wallpaper" as a bonus … without having to wait for QSL cards.

Happy new year! Happy new century! Happy new millennium! The debate is over. Once all of us make it into 2001, there will be no question that we've entered the third millennium on the Gregorian calendar. Now that we're all in agreement on which millennium and which century we're in, and now that we've got a whole bunch of new operators on the HF ham bands, eager to work DX and hang up some operating awards, or "wallpaper," we at CQ decided it was finally time for us to sponsor an official millennium operating award. But rather than coming up with a whole new award with a whole new set of rules, we decided to make it simple (but challenging), while helping you qualify for our all-the-time award programs.

Here's how it works: During calendar year 2001 (UTC), meet the minimum qualifications for the basic level of any one of our other awards (minus the QSL cards), and you're in. For example, work stations in 500 counties -- the basic level for the USA-CA Award -- send us your log extract in accordance with USA-CA rules, and you qualify for the CQ Millennium Award. Same goes for the basic levels of the CQ DX Award (100 countries), the Worked All Zones Award (work one station in each of the 40 CQ zones), and the CQ WPX Award (work 400 prefixes mixed-mode or 300 prefixes single mode -- CW or SSB only). Work 'em, send us your log extract showing the information required by the standard award rules, in the format required by the standard award rules, plus a $6 processing fee ($12 outside the US) and that's it.

There will be special recognition if you qualify on the basis of more than one award program's requirements, and particularly if you achieve the nearly impossible feat of contacting 500 counties, 400/300 prefixes, 100 countries, and 40 zones in the course of a single year.
Because this is an operating award rather than a contest, there are no band restrictions on qualifying contacts (even if a particular award does have band restrictions in its standard rules). The award is open to all amateurs -- VHFers probably have the best chance of qualifying under WPX rules -- and to SWLs, even for those awards that do not normally have SWL components.

The operating period for the CQ Millennium Award is 0000 UTC on January 1, 2001 to 2359 UTC on December 31, 2001 (it was tempting to make it from 01:01:01 on 01/01/01 to 12:31:01 on 12/31/01, but it wouldn't work in Europe, where it would end on 31/12/01, and we haven't been able to find a matching time). Final log submissions must be made by March 31, 2002. Please refer to standard award rules on the CQ website (<http://www.cq-amateur-radio.com/awards.html>) for specifics of the requirements for each award. Details regarding log submissions and certificates will follow in a subsequent issue. For now, though, start working those stations, and start collecting your choice of counties, countries, prefixes or zones -- or all four!
Remember, an opportunity like this won't come along again for another 1000 years!

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