[ILQSO] ILQP--my perspective

[Peter E. Beedlow]

I have been sitting back reading all of the comments about band conditions
and smiling. I can't comment on the SSB issues or activity since I don't
have a microphone attached to any of my radios. Because of family issues I
couldn't operate in the ILQP last year so I can make any comparisons to 2006
but I did operate in the Wisconsin QSO Party both years and even though that
contest is in March there are some of the same issues.

Sunspots, there just aren't many and for the last month there has been even
fewer than normal for this portion of a "normal" cycle so logically I didn't
feel that I could count on any consistent  propagation on 10, 15 or 20
meters. That leaves 40-meters as the workhouse band for the contest with
contacts on 20-meters or higher as a bonus. Then of course there is
80-meters. Last March in the WIQP running multi-multi mobile we worked more
multipliers in two and a half hours on 80-meters than we did in five hours
on 20-meters, definitely a band to be on in the QSO Parties.

I just read Jeff's note about his experiences on 20-meters, I don't have my
logs in front of me but as I remember I had around 60 contacts on
20-meters...

I'm not really complaining about this year's activity nor the propagation, I
averaged about 80 Qs an hour for the contest but I did find out that
tri-focals and bumpy Illinois roads make computer logging interesting and it
seems that notebook keyboards keep shrinking in size.

Are pileups supposed to get easier to handle with age? Doesn't seem that way
to me, but they are fun!

So that's by $.02 worth for this year. Really need to get some after the
contest stuff done and then take a closer look at my log.

Thanks to all for the 8 hours of fun.

Pete, NN9K