The VA QSO Party 'Single Operator Virginia QSOs Only' Plaque

Sponsored by www.hamradio.me

Who will win in 2017?

Virginia QSO Party

The Virginia QSO Party is an annual event growing in popularity among hams in Virginia and all across North America. Check out the stats here. This success is due in large part to the excellent stewardship by the Sterling Park ARC. They maintain details for the QSO Party at their Web Site.
If you are interested in the Virginia QSO Party you have probably already seen the nice list of awards available for this "contest" at...

Virginia QSO Party

One of them concentrates on Virginia contacts:

Single Operator Virginia Counties/Independent Cities Contacted

To focus on Virginia Contacts further, we introduce a new plaque that any log may compete for and is simply the score recomputed using only contacts the operator makes to Virginia stations. Any station, within or outside of Virginia, may compete for this award. All Single Operator logs submited to SPARC automatically qualify. The name of the new plaque under the Plaques available to any Single Operator Station section is:

Single Operator Virginia QSOs Only

In a nutshell, this plaque awards the SO log, in or outside Virginia, who contacts the most Virginia Stations QSO Points * Virginia Counties/Cities.

Scoring Method

Here is the method used to calculate the single operator score for the Single Operator Virginia QSOs Only plaque.
This plaque is automatically computed from submitted Single Operator Cabrillo logs (Note: I think SPARC volunteers painstakingly convert all hand logs to Cabrillo or equiv. so they also qualify - see below). To ensure your log remains eligible do the following:

Make sure your submission file has the "NAME:" header defined with your name
Make sure your submission file contains one "QSO:" line for every QSO
So you get full credit for contacts with Mobiles, make sure their call signs in the QSO: lines end with /M

With the logs that pass this test here is how the scoring engine will compute the score...

Ignore all QSOs not made with a Virginia station leaving only contacted VA stations
MobileQSOPoints = MobileQSOs * 3.
CW-DIGQSOPoints = NonMobileCW-DIGQSOs * 2.
PhoneQSOPoints = NonMobilePhoneQSOs * 1.
Ignore all multipliers not in Virginia leaving a total not greater than 133
Multipliers = # of Counties and Cities worked by the single operator (133 or less).
SO_VA_Score = (MobileQSOPoints + CW-DIGQSOPoints + PhoneQSOPoints) * Multipliers.

Why?
There has been some thought the VAQP needs to concentrate a bit more on Virginia contacts and this plaque offers a level playing field of just Virginia contacts to realize this goal.
Every single operator log is eligible for this plaque even if they contain other North American and DX contacts. Make as many contacts as you can to everywhere you can. Your log is still eligible for this award.

What about Power Categories?
There is no power category for this plaque. It is a winner take all. The local nature of this contest often benefits all stations including those with low power. At least twice, the winner of the "Virginia Single Operator Low Power" plaque had scores higher than the winner of the High Power plaque. This suggests a parity and no distinct advantage for the local contacts. Sure a high power station will beat pileups, but their real advantage comes with North American and DX contacts neither of which count towards this new plaque. In 2015, a QRP signal beat my QRO signal in a pileup - anything is possible.

Hand Logs Count - Thanks to SPARC
I re-emphasize the volunteers at SPARC convert hand logs into their electronic versions by hand plus a great many volunteer hours. So theoretically all logs will qualify for this plaque thanks to the charity of SPARC members. Realistically, champion efforts always use computer logging, but all logs qualify so long as SPARC's good will holds out.