[ILQSO] KJ9C/M Damage report

[Mel Crichton]

I KNEW that jet lag would get me, just didn't know when. Sure enough,
in late afternoon I realized that there were long lags in my responses
as I searched the keyboard for the right response to your reports...
sorry, folks, and thanks for your patience.

So I initiated plan B and went straight to the last stop
(Clark/Coles/Edgar) and skipped the four counties I knew that others
would cover. Set up at Clark/Coles/Edgar and then it got dark. Really
dark. The ability to concentrate worsened while trying for a last few
CW QSOs while driving east on I-70 in Clark County ... it had been
dark less than an hour, 80 was opening, and I was fried. But once in
Indiana, I turned off the PC and rig, opened the windows, cranked up
the music and made it to Indy right after the end of ILQP.

The usual laptop maladies showed up, but this time BEFORE the 1800Z
start. The body being on London time, I woke up EARLY and was on
station a full hour ahead of the start. So there was time to fix
everything that had seemed to work BEFORE driving 180 miles to stop
number one.

Many county line roads in Illinois are not paved. Top speed on some of
those roads is maybe 50 MPH. The one between Lawrence and Richland is
especially bad.  But fate (and the ILQP) favored with the guy whose
truck was mired in the ditch on that road. He asked me for a ride to a
phone, but there was no room in the 4Runner with all the radio junk .
Yet it was his lucky day, my tow chain was in the back, and only ten
minutes later I was off and raising a dust cloud 200 yards high.

Damage report - about 470 miles (hated to pay $2.05 a gallon when it
is 1.90 just across the line in Terre Haute). Time on 6:25.
Activated 12 counties. A lot of BIG pileups (Thanks to all who spotted
us mobiles). I worked a number of mobiles but not JF or the other
'J9C.  Good to hear W3DYA/m all the way up here from Texas.

About 400 QSO's (3/4 CW) on 20-40-80 meters. About 100 mults (50
mode-S/P and 50 mode-counties)
Final score maybe 80-100 K... first I gotta fix all the corrupted log
data due to laptop burps (shows a lot of 1GHz QSOs. Didn't know I had
that band in the truck.... harmonics?)

Mel KJ9C