[ILQSO] Nostalgia

Wed Nov 8 14:39:03 EST 2017

Hi Jim,

Got them from Roger,  thanks for the offer.

73 John AF5CC

On Wed, Nov 8, 2017 at 12:01 PM, Jim Funk <jfunk at fossna.com> wrote:

> I have them.
>
> Sent from my iPhone
> "He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot
> lose." -- Jim Elliot
>
> On Nov 8, 2017, at 10:40 AM, John Geiger <af5cc2 at gmail.com<mailto:af5cc
> 2 at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> Hi Jim,
>
> Thanks for the walk down memory lane.  I was thinking about that same time
> period while doing the ILQP this year.  The date of this year's contest,
> October 22, was my late Grandmother's birthday, and the first time I ever
> operated in the ILQP, I missed the first or 2/3 of the contest since we had
> a birthday party for her at White Pines State Park, and I didn't get back
> to Dekalb, where I was in graduate school at the time, until pretty late in
> the afternoon.  That was 1994 I believe, or possibly 1993.  I was using an
> Icom 720A barefoot in my apartment with an indoor dipole for 20 and above,
> and a random wire that went out the window and attached to a metal grate
> that ran under the eves of the apartment, which I used on 30 and below.  I
> am sure I made a few QSOs in the contest, but have no idea how many.
>
> Would anyone happen to have the results for the 1993-1996 ILQPs?  I would
> love to know how I did in each one.  In 1996 I was doing my first stint at
> Cameron University so I had the same 720A but a longer dipole hidden inside
> the apartment.  I would have been signing NE0P/9 or NE0P/5 for those time
> periods
>
> 73 John now AF5CC
>
> On Sat, Nov 4, 2017 at 8:56 PM, Jim Funk <jfunk at fossna.com<mailto:jfunk
> @fossna.com>> wrote:
>
> 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<mailto:n9jf at arrl.net>!  73, Jim N9JF
>
> Best regards,
>
> Jim Funk
> Customer Service Engineer
>
> FOSS
>
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> jfunk at fossna.com<mailto:jfunk at fossna.com>
>
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