[ILQSO] PA3ARM IN IL PARTY

[van Enckevort, Harry]

Hey there,

Just subscribed to this list; thought it may be of interest to share a
little bit with u;  who I am and some feelings on this year's party. Age 57
hr now es lis in 1979 but not on the bands between 1983 es 1994 ; so far
operate CW only (98%) ,  100W wid moderate dipoles/inv vee. Already
interested in USA-CA in 1979 ! 
(some SSB (contest) /dig modes activity "planned" when I retire in january 

Ten Tec freak, (first TRX OMNI D>B still in the shack - also OMNI 6 plus),
ARRL member, mainly DX es counthy hunting activities; obtained the basic
USA-CA in 2001 ; will/can apply fer mi 1000 endorsement later this year.  
Just as with TX 4 weeks earlier condx finally made it fun to participate.
Both during 2000 es 2001 parties I made a handful of contacts only. (by the
way : cud not participate in  CA party - no condx anyhow es also not in PA
party ! /wow ! must have been super condx ?!, after 2 subsequent
participations in 00/01 wid lots of contacts)
Mi vy first QSO party was GA in 1999; since then approx 25 more wid vy
inconstant results  

Still have approx 70 counties to go in ILL so the effort was worth it . Made
38 contacts -lots of new counties but do they all count fer USA-CA???? -
manual logging as always yet -  15m shone - also 20m es had hope the band
wud stay open till 02,00 am here but just b4 midnight alls sigs vanished...
should have gone to bed (had to be in the office next day) but decided to
wait fer all the RTTY sigs to disappear on 40m (00.00Z) but made only 1
contact ....called to NY4N numerous times but....believe there were no EU's
anymore apart from DL5ME es myself..

Was surprised from the beginning abt all the county line ops whether /p or
/m ....had checked portable/mobile ops ops on the web but not realised there
wud be so mni c/l ops -  understand now have to study the USA-CA rules es
see how to work the QSLing out.  hi hi 
Understand there are no possibilities to send the log electronically..

THANKS TO ALL THE /P ES /M FER MAKING THE EFFORTS ES GIVING DX STNS THE
CONTACTS !
I still like (love)the parties as being contests plus being tools to upgrade
the USA-CA which in mi eyes is one of the finest awards to obtain. (no award
freak here!) 

Hpe to be on in the parties fer mni mni years to come ..tks to RAMS fer
organising this year's contest 

Harry