It seems that someone couldn’t follow the contest rules and decided to go out and make contacts as a mobile station during the Florida QSO Party this past weekend.
I’m not going to be critical of that person’s actions of leaving their home, driving on some roads, and then parking by themselves and operating their radio from the standpoint of violating a stay at home order or endangering the health of others. I’d be happy to make the argument that no one’s health was compromised nor was any law or order that could pass a Constitutional challenge violated.
The issues I’m raising here in my post are only related to the FQP and the integrity and application of it’s rules and not the larger issue that forced the rules changes for this year’s contest. I’m also not critical about the fact the rules were changed for this year. I think the FQP organizers got out in front of the issue and made a good decision to change the rules for 2020.
My first issue is with the individual operator who decided on his own that he was going to go out and operate mobile in the FQP despite the rules saying there was to be no mobile entries. After the fact he offered the justification that his log was turned in as a check log only, and that his actions resulted in some other participants getting some FL counties in their logs which they likey otherwise wouldn’t have contacted. That’s all beside the point. The point is that he decided that the rule didn’t apply to him.
My second issue has to do with the reaction from the FQP folks on their mailing list. Instead of saying something like “you shouldn’t have done that, we can’t support breaking the rules, and the contacts you made will be removed from the other parties scores” they instead offered congratulations and thanks. They chastised the people who did raise objections and point out the issues on their mailing list. This sends the wrong message and holds up a bad example.
Contesting in amateur radio relies very much on both the integrity of the individual operators as well as that of the contest organizers. I’m thankful to have not participated nor supported this event in 2020.