[ILQSO] KI9A Fixed + thoughts

[KI9A at aol.com]

Wow..
 
Not sure what happened, my score is down about 10% from last year.   Had 
high hopes this year would be much better, with improved propagation. Got to  
go thru my logs and figure out what happened. As of now, I think 
participation  seemed way down, especially on CW. Add the fact I was dealing with a 
weird  Writelog/Microham "lag" issue with my logger. i know I missed time 
dealing with  that...sometimes, it would be a 1 second lag after I hit a key, to 
either log,  or send a report. Sometimes, it was just fine. 
 
In years past, I could always get sustained runs on 40/80 CW.  I felt  it 
was really sporadic this year. Had many stations comment on my signal, and  
that it was loud, so, can't blame that. ( feel free to let me know my signal  
was).  Didn't spend any time in pileups for mults, got thru on 1st call  
most of the time. I might have stayed on 10 meters a bit long,  hoping to  get 
a run of west coast stations going. Ran several EU, and, had some decent DX 
 call in, 7X5, and A61 on 10. 
 
I am looking forward to seeing what the other 100k + fixed stations felt  
about condx.
 
Still drives me absolutely crazy, seeing mobiles going rare county to rare  
county, and staying on 20 meters, knowing I have little chance of working  
them..arrrgh! Seems everytime I looked at W6RK, they were spotted on 20. I  
understand they are maximizing their scores there, and the big guns..the 
guys  with higher, better antennas, have a better chance of hearing them on 
scatter,  and groundwave, where us peashooters don't.
 
I love the way the county map filled in. Another great job by Jim, Danny,  
and everyone at WIARC. Also, a tip of the hat to Dennis, KM9O, for lighting 
a  HUGE fire here in SW IL, and making several portable, and fixed stations 
active  down here. Right now, I'm thinking of doing a portable county line 
op next  year.
 
Not sure how to promote more mobile participation though. Mel, KJ9C, had  
shoulder surgery, and, that's no excuse! LOL! ;-) If I had enough talent, and 
 equipment, I'd give it a shot. No way I could drive, operate, and log. 
 
results:
 
BAND        CW        SSB
80               63           53
40              119          150
20                48           100
10                6            17
 
                236            320        121 mults  = 95,832pts  
 
 
73! SEE YOU IS NOV SS!
 
Chuck KI9A