[ILQSO] SSB operation and other stuff

[Jim Funk]

On any phone band, I'd advise staying in the General portions to maximize your audience.  Beyond that, it's a matter of finding a spot and being loud.  Co-exist as best you can with on-going QSOs and nets that start up on the hour on the frequency "where they have been meeting for the last forty years...". Don't be shy about asking stations to spot you.

Regardless of the various preferences to the contrary, I have not found any spotting site that works better than http://ch.w6rk.com/.  If you are watching for spots, you can customize how often it updates by changing the number of spots shown.  

Please spot mobiles and rovers often.  It's discouraging to have only 15 minutes in a county and never really get any action but know you have to keep moving to cover your assigned route.  Mobiles and rovers, if you can land on the same frequency, or as close as possible to it, when you change counties, it will help other stations locate you. If you can do the same when changing bands, so much the better.  E.g., 14038.5,7038.5, 3538.5.  

If you are a loud fixed station or portable, you are probably going to have a good pileup a lot of the time. Especially at the beginning of the event, it will behoove you to stand by for mobiles and rovers who may be calling but who are 4 or 5 S-units weaker than most of the pileup.  These weak stations will probably work you later in the contest and get credit for your county/counties, but you may miss several of the counties THEY are trying to give you!  I know it's not easy to remember to do this, and someone is probably going to remind me on Monday that I didn't take my own advice...but it's still good advice....

This especially applies to phone operators.  Mobiles and rovers are mostly using low power and seriously compromised antennas.  If you are a loud phone station calling CQ, I will call you....but I won't spend more than a minute or so doing it, because I can get more points by going back to  CW and running.   If I call you from two or three counties without getting your attention, from then on I will probably just tune past you and find someone else.  My experience calling CQ on SSB in ILQP has been consistently discouraging; I probably won't waste time trying but will try to go to SSB in each county and zip through the band and get a few contacts in the log

I will also try to go to 146.55 in each county, realizing that it may not produce a lot of points.  There are probably a few Tech operators out there who will hang around that frequency and should be rewarded for their efforts.

Here's hoping that 20 meters will cooperate early in the day and allow some EU contacts.  It was discouraging last year to work NO DX.  After dark, 40 will probably be good for EU if they can hear our weak mobile signals.

General rule:  Call CQ a lot.  Be friendly but brief.  Encourage the stations you work whom you don't recognize as a "regular" to send in a log.  Just tell them to Google "Illinois QSO Party" for details.

Looking forward to lots of fun on Sunday.

73, Jim N9JF