[ILQSO] 2008 ILQP

[Peter E. Beedlow]

Guess with the wind blowing as hard as it was Sunday the WIARC team couldn't
hear the cheers and applause from the GRVARS folks for a job well done. We
all appreciate the time and labor you put into the post-contest work.

>From my perspective the contest was just a Sunday afternoon drive, maybe a
little hectic at times but still a nice drive. I'm lucky enough to have an
excellent driver whom I trust to make routing changes on the fly with little
input from me. He knows when to go fast and when to slow down and most
importantly how to make gentle turns to keep all my stuff from flying
around.

My only wish for the 2009 contest and it'll never happen, is for a lot of
road repairs. This state has to have some of the worst highways in the
country and for a CW op it presents a challenge just to keep the dits and
dahs in the correct order. During the contest we were on a secondary road
and hit a hidden, unavoidable bump and I lost all my keying. After a few
quick checks I determined that keying cable had popped out of the rig.
Needless to say next year tape and baling wire will be used to secure all
the cables. Nice roads!

But as I said above, it was a nice Sunday drive and you guys did a great job
with the publicity, the log checking, the awards and everything it takes to
make a bang-up QSO Party. Thanks again for the effort.  

Pete, NN9K