[ILQSO] Nostalgia

[Jim Funk]

ILQP QUARTER-CENTURY NOSTALGIA  de N9JF...
I'm not sure what it says about my aging process, lack of concentration, lowered testosterone, distractibility, waning killer instinct....
It's ARRL CW SS contest weekend (always one of my favorites)  I find myself spending time cleaning the shack.  Say what?  There's a contest to operate!  But..but...the shack needs cleaning!  There are piles of papers that haven't been examined in years.  It's like digging into a Native American burial ground...though legal. One of the envelopes I opened contained a bunch of ILQP results and commentary from the early 1990's.  One in particular I found interesting because of a letter I'd received from WB9GOJ/K9LY (s.k.).  Joe and I exchanged some thoughts about the history of the contest and where it might go.
So....what characterized the ILQP 25 years ago (1992)?
The RAMS group in Chicago had picked up a dropped event and run with it, ably administering the event for several years.  Let's compare the results of that year's event with 2017.  In 1992, there were 31 logs submitted from IL Fixed stations and 5 IL Mobile Stations, and 12 entries from out-of-state.   The winning IL Fixed station made a total of 107 CW and 140 SSB contacts.  Two IL Mobile stations put on a total of 45 counties.  Some things seldom change: KF9D was the winning mobile.  He made 353 CW contacts.  The winning out-of-state station (K4BAI), with 3591 points, made 65 CW and 3 SSB contacts in 27 counties. The winning IL club (Elgin ARS) had an aggregate score of 97,000 points.  
Twenty-five years later, yes, things have changed a bit.
With 2 weeks to go before the log submission deadline, we are just short of 250 logs received.  Most of those, thankfully, were electronic submissions!  Last year, we received 283 logs, and I'm confident we will pass that for 2017. The top scoring IL Fixed station in 2017 will be over 180,000 points with over 800 QSOs.  The top mobiles have over 600 QSOs. The top out-of-state station will be over 50,000 points with at least 90 counties worked.  The top club will have an aggregate of over a million points.
So...what changed?  
It can't be "conditions".  The early 90's saw great sunspot numbers and lots of band activity. Maybe everyone was working DX instead of QSO parties?  Maybe the whole idea of QSO parties got more popular due to the ARRL's "Year of the QSO Party" a few years back?  Are awards better?  Gas prices aren't that much better (though they're not as bad as they were a couple of years ago).  Did moving away from the PAQP weekend help?  Certainly the massive interest in the event shown by a few IL clubs during the past couple of decades has made a big difference.  Cheerleading by PRIME, FRRL, KARS, GRVARS, WIARC and others has had an effect, partly in getting teams into the field and in spurring activity from home and in submitting logs.  Maybe more stations are antenna-limited and finding that domestic contests can be a blast without towers and lots of aluminum.  Others are discovering what a rush it can be to operate from a portable location and be "DX" for eight hours!
I'd like your thoughts....and your log, if you haven't sent it yet to n9jf at arrl.net!  73, Jim N9JF

Best regards, 

Jim Funk
Customer Service Engineer

FOSS

800/547-6275 
option 1 for parts, option 3 for service
jfunk at fossna.com

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