SOAB HP, QRP, MM, M2, SO2R... Have We Lost You Yet?

You have decided to enter your first amateur radio contest. Excellent. You read the rules and discover that you can enter SO, MO, MM, MS, M1, M2, HP, LP, QRP, AB, SB, SOAB HP, SO1V, SO2V or SO2R. At this point you may reasonably wonder whether you've accidentally opened a radio contest document or intercepted a particularly bureaucratic military transmission. Fortunately, the WIA has a handy Contest Terminology guide that translates the alphabet soup into something resembling English.

Some of it is relatively painless. SO means Single Operator, MO means Multi Operator, AB means All Bands and SB means Single Band. Then the contest community starts combining them. SOAB HP, for example, means Single Operator, All Band, High Power. MS is Multi-Single, M2 is Multi Operator with two radios and SO2R is Single Operator, Two Radios, presumably for operators who have concluded that controlling one radio at a time isn't sufficiently stressful. And then there's QRP, operation at 5 watts or less, where the objective is apparently to prove that persistence can compensate for electricity.

The guide also explains the terminology you'll encounter once the contest gets underway. An exchange is the information that must be passed during each QSO; a dupe is a station you've already worked when the rules don't permit another contact for points; a mult is shorthand for multiplier; a checklog assists adjudication but isn't included in the results; and a Golden Log contains no QSO errors, a mythical condition rumoured to have been observed occasionally in captivity. The document also explains Cabrillo, ADIF, clusters, grids, serial numbers, penalties, claimed scores and the all-important deadline!

So if you've been looking at contest results and wondering how somebody can simultaneously be SOAB LP, or why your perfectly respectable ADIF file isn't what the contest manager asked for, have a read of the WIA's two-page guide. It was prepared by Alan Shannon VK4SN and is available through the WIA General Contest Rules page.

Download the WIA Contest Terminology Guide - Link

If you haven't participated in a contest, why not give it a try? The main aim of contests and Field Days is to have fun on the air and to meet up with as many of your fellow amateurs as possible. You don't need to have a super station, and it doesn't really matter who wins!

Page Last Updated: Saturday, 22 Aug 2026 at 14:53 hours by Justin Giles-clark

Click Here To Return To Previous Page