CQ Contests and the War in Ukraine
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and subsequent attacks targeting civilians have set off a debate in the amateur radio community about the most appropriate way to respond, including no response at all. On March 17th, after considering a wide range of often eloquently written perspectives from members of the CQ Contest Committee and others, CQ management issued a policy statement limiting the contest participation of stations in Russia, Belarus, and the Donbas region of Ukraine to non-competitive entries. In addition, CQ will not award contact points or multipliers for contacts by others with these stations. To be clear, our action does not ban any station’s participation in any CQ contest; rather, it applies to how certain logs and contacts will be scored.
As expected, our announcement has resulted in dozens of email responses, both in support and in (often strong) opposition. What follows is the text of CQ’s statement as well as a representative sampling of responses. Additional background and explanation of CQ’s decision will be found in this month’s “Zero Bias” editorial on page 6.
STATEMENT OF CQ COMMUNICATIONS, INC., REGARDING CQ CONTESTS AND THE RUSSIAN INVASION OF UKRAINE
(Northport, NY 17 March, 2022) – CQ Communications, Inc., publishers of magazine and sponsor of the CQ World Wide DX and WPX Contests, announced today that in light of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia and Belarus, it will not accept competitive entries in any of its sponsored contests by amateur radio stations in Russia, Belarus or the separatist Donbas region of Ukraine (unofficial D1 prefix). Logs submitted by these stations will be accepted only as checklogs. In addition, contacts with these stations
