[ILQSO] Christian/Sangamon counties

[Donald Pitchford]

I don't know how the SVRC did yet, but I wanted to let everyone know 
how the ILQSO Party went from Lake Sangchris. COLD---VERY VERY COLD!!! 
I put up a G5RV as an inverted-V, apex at 30 feet, ends at 3 feet. Rig 
was ICOM 706 with AT-180 auto-tuner. It seemed to work pretty well. I 
was going to use the Club call, W9DUA but when I made the first contact 
I gave them my call, so we became W9EBK! I did a bit of H&P for an 
hour, then some Boy Scouts showed up (we always advertise this to 
Scouts since JOTA is the same weekend). We got into a long QSO with a 
scout camp in NY on 20 meters, so ILQSO contacts stopped for about an 
hour while our 4 scouts talked with about 25 of their scouts. After 
that some of the soon-to-be hams from out Tech class showed up so they 
got to see what it was all about.

The hot dogs and chili were excellent. We burned half a truckload of 
fire wood to keep warm. Finally around 19:45, WA0CMB and I got on a run 
and filled up the log. A note to K8BB: thanks for the patients working 
us when we had the young operator at the mic. That was JT, KC9HLM (10 
years old), he has been licensed since he was 9! Just think of what he 
will be able to do in another 20 years!

WD9EEK was also on from our SVRC operation, but he should only get 1/2 
point for each contact as he operated from a heated motorhome.

Scores to follow soon.

Don, W9EBK