[ILQSO] ILQP from Oklahoma

[John Geiger]

For the ILQP this year everything was falling into place:
1. The family had other plans for most of the day allowing for undisturbed opeating
2. I worked a little of the IAQP the day before and found excellent condition on 40 between Iowa and Oklahoma
3. The Cowboys were off yesterday so didn't have to worry about TVI during their game-unfortunately Dallas is the popular team here
4. I already worked the Midway DXpedition on 40 and 80 so didn't have to stay up late Saturday night or get up early Sunday to try and work them, so I would be well rested for the ILQP.

Everything just looked perfect, but alas, I have to join the Cubs fans and say "WAIT UNTIL NEXT YEAR".

At the start of the contest there was no propagation between IL and OK on 20m.  I could hear some stations working IL stations but couldn't hear the IL station. No problem, I will just go to 40m and slug it out there, and hope the band is already long.  Tuned to 40m and was greeted with an S8 noise level.  That was with the 300hz CW filter in line so you can guess how band the noise really was.  I could hear only the loudest stations on CW.  The noise was only 30khz wide but of course it chose 7040 to 7070 for the 30khz, taking out all of the ILQP frequencies.  Since things were much quieter higher up I spend much more time than usual on SSB working stations there.

I don't know where this noise was coming from, but it sure was frustrating.  It wasn't there on Saturday for the IAQP.  It would briefly stop from time to time, so I might start working a mobile station but when their exchange came so did the noise, completely taking them out. I apoligize to all of the mobiles whom I frustrated in that way.  I was pretty much limited to working loud fixed stations the first half of the contest.  I think the only mobiles I could hear at all on CW were K9AA and KJ9C and even then I had limited QSOs with them.  ALso, I had to take a break every 20 minutes or so just to clear my head from all the noise.  
At one point it was joined by a loud ticking noise that was showing S9 plus peaks on the meter.  The FT857D NB (one of the more worthless ones) did nothing on the ticks.

Finally around 4pm or so the noise either left or moved further up band, so I could start working people on 40CW.  By 5:30 or so 80 had lengthened up enough to start working IL up there but I was then competing with the much louder and closer 3, 8, 0s and the in-state QSOs. Still, from 4pm on the county total really picked up.

I finished with around 95 CW QSOs and 35 SSB QSOs in 63 counties for a total score around 14,000.  Let's hope next year holds better things.

Thanks to all of the mobile and portable stations for going out and really helping with the county mults.  From what I understand it sounds like you had excellent WX yesterday for outside operations.

73s John AA5JG