[ILQSO] IQP thoughts

[KI9A at aol.com]

In a message dated 10/18/04 2:58:59 PM Central Daylight Time, 
martho1 at comcast.net writes:

> I can tell you that finding 8 people on 2 FM would be a great 
> accomplishment in Cook.  Now, if you have a repeater club and you can get 
> some of them motivated you might be able to make a dozen q's if you really 
> beat the drum hard. It is not an advantage IMO.  

Well, Mark, here in a county that there are only about 3, maybe 4 active 
HF'ers contesters, I could have rallied at least 20 guys to get on vhf, that is 
30-40 extra QSO's, assuming they have 2 & 6, which many do. That is a quick 4 
mults.  Then, there is a club up in Madison that I could have had another dozen 
or more get on.  Then there are a few part-time HFer's, well, you can just 
about see how that would snowball. I guess I made it sound like you could runt 
hem on 146.52...not so, but would be easy to mention at a couple of local 
repeater clubs that you would be looking for them.

I'll be danged if I could get any of them on for the party to work others, 
that, is one thing I can't understand for the life of me. There are several hams 
up in Madison county!

In a contest where there is a pretty limited amount of mults out there, 
adding an extra 5%-8% to your mult total ( that is avery do-able number, maybe a 
bit low actually), you really pump your score up.  Like I said, my last 18 QSO's 
where all with St.Clair, & if would have on 144.200 earlier, I could have 
doubled that with ease, as 3 local HF'ers were ready to chase me up thru 160, 
both modes.

Again, keep this for the out of state guys & the mobiles, no doubt. We depend 
on these folks for the existance of the party. But, having said that, we 
don't need to scare off the guys in counties with lower ham populations away by 
giving us guys in larger areas an unfair advantage. Clearly, that is what this 
is.

The orginal intent, I think, was to encourage a guy like me, in St,Clair, to 
get an extra mult for working 8 guys in Lake, or Cook, or where ever. I'm sure 
the RAMS guys never intended it to be used running VHF &/or locals 2-160 CW & 
SSB.  I've been doing this QP for 10 or 11 years now, & it has developed into 
just about my favorite contest. There is nothing wrong with stepping back, 
and taking a look at how to "tweak" the rules. Earlier start & scrapping the 8/Q 
mult (for fixed) would the ONLY thing I could see to tweak.

Again, thanks to the RAMS, and a BIG thanks to the MOBILES who put up with 
$2/gallon fuel prices, to activate so, so many counties. Hats off to you guys!!!

73-Chuck KI9A

GO CARDINALS!!