Only a handful of large contests are multimode – that is, they allow both CW and SSB contacts to count for points in the same contest weekend. Three such contests are administered by the ARRL: ARRL Field Day, the ARRL 10-Meter Contest, and the IARU HF Contest. The Russian DX Contest and nearly all state QSO parties are multimode as well. The sponsors sometimes tweak the rules for these events to award a different number of points for CW QSOs than for SSB QSOs. Let’s look at the historical justifications for the point differentials offered by the ARRL at the time of their announcement and examine how (or even if) contesters responded in their on-air activity these weekends.
Field Day
Starting in 1975, ARRL Field Day has awarded two points for CW contacts and one point for SSB contacts. Dave Sumner, K1ZZ, in his June 1975 QST editorial, described this as a “trial” to “bolster CW activity” after observing that the plurality of Field Day operations used SSB only. This trial became permanent in 1977. Actual mode usage in Field Day submissions in 2022 is shown in the Venn diagram at the top of Figure 1. We see the lure of higher CW points over the past 50 years hasn’t flipped the trend towards SSB activity that the ARRL was responding to – the most common mode choice made by Field Day efforts remains SSB-only.
Field Day isn’t exactly a typical contest – in fact, the ARRL rarely includes the word “contest” in describing it, and much of the effort is better described as being built around maximizing summer outdoor fun and food instead of points. () Very few of the callsigns I work on
