[ILQSO] 2009 Musings

[Tim McDonough N9PUZ]

First, a big thank you to the organizers who put in the effort for this 
event each year.

This year I operated with the Macoupin County ARC from a pasture where 
Green, Jersey, and Macoupin Counties meet. It was a 'field day' sort of 
operation with 3 individual stations in the same field. It was a great 
location with plenty of antenna space. The weather cooperated and aside 
from a bit of wind it was a fine day for portable operating.

40 Meters seemed long all day and got longer as the day progressed. I 
was operating SSB under my own call (N9PUZ) using battery power. We had 
been interested in seeing what sort of results we would get with an NVIS 
antenna. With the band going long the answer was "not much". (The 
antenna was an emergency type setup with a loop suspended very near the 
ground on electric fence posts.) The only Illinois county worked was 
Lake but there were several out of state contacts that I didn't expect.

After a couple of hours we switched 40 phone to a vertical and had much 
better success but still no Illinois contacts by that time.

The 20 Meter SSB operator (K9MCE) using the club call fared better with 
out of state participants.

Another station on 40 Meter CW fared best of all. Bob (KC9HGW) made more 
Illinois contacts and out of state contacts than anyone. He was using a 
conventional inverted-V setup with the apex about 30 feet or so.

Handing out three counties at the same time is interesting. Since most 
participants aren't expecting it repeats are the norm. Over the course 
of the day there were a couple of really fun moments. We gave a station 
in Maine 'Jersey' county which was the last one he needed to have worked 
all 102 Illinois counties. Another station worked had five Illinois 
counties left to go and we gave him 2 in a single contact.

If everyone who participated had as much fun as I did the event was a 
huge success.

Tim, N9PUZ