[WIQPmail] Illinois QSO Party, 1700Z October 22nd to 0100Z October 23rd 2017

[Mark Thompson]

http://www.w9awe.org/ILQP.html
Announcing the 2017 Illinois QSO Party… Sponsored by The Western Illinois Amateur Radio Club. Inc.

Date/Time: 1700Z October 22 to 0100Z October 23, 2017

Bands: 160 through 2 meters, excluding 60, 30, 17, and 12 meters.

Special band activity times: 
IL stations are encouraged to spend some time on 20 meters in the early afternoon to work DX stations seeking IL counties and to check 15 meters and 10 meters at 1800Z, 1900Z and 2000Z.

Exchange: 
IL stations give RST and county; others give RST and state, province, or country.
Scoring: Count 1 point per phone QSO, 2 points per CW/digital QSO. No repeater QSOs. All stations are limited to one transmitted signal at a time. SO2R operation is permitted. Stations may be worked once per band and mode (phone and CW/digital), and once per band/mode/county for IL Mobile and Rover stations. Each Mobile or Rover vehicle is considered one station and must use only one call. Contacts with/by stations at the border of 2 counties count as 2 counties and 2 QSOs; the border of 3 (or 4) counties count as 3 (or 4) counties and 3 (or 4) QSOs. IL stations multiply points by the sum of states, IL counties, VE provinces, and a maximum of 5 DXCC countries (for this event W/K, Alaska, Hawaii and VE do not count as DX entities). Count additional DX for QSO points but not for additional multipliers. Non-IL stations multiply points by number of IL counties worked.

Entry Classes:
Illinois Fixed Station, High Power: Permanent station location, single county, with a transmitter output power level exceeding 200W PEP.
Illinois Fixed Station, Low Power: Permanent station location, single county, with a transmitter output power level not exceeding 200W PEP.
Illinois Portable: Not a permanent station location; antennas erected for the purpose of the contest; may be on a county line or corner. (Note: County lines established by waterways may not be activated in the ILQP.)

Illinois Mobile: 
Stations capable of motion while operating though may be stationary. Entrants are encouraged to utilize a separate driver and to choose operating procedures with safety uppermost in mind! Mobile entrants may operate from only one county at a time. Simultaneous operation from more than one county will result in reclassification to “Rover” category.

Illinois Rover: 
Stations operating from more than one non-permanent location. Single county, county line and county corner operation is permitted. Any type of mobile or portable antennas may be used. Any power source may be used (auto, generator or commercial mains). Rover stations may operate while moving or stopped.
Outside Illinois, High Power: Any fixed, portable or mobile station operating from outside the state of Illinois, with a transmitter output power level exceeding 200W PEP.
Outside Illinois, Low Power: Any fixed, portable or mobile station operating from outside the state of Illinois, with a transmitter output power level not exceeding 200W PEP.
Rev 0 – 5 September 2016

QRP Competition: 
A QRP entrant shall certify that operation was with a transmitter output power level of 5 watts or less at all times by checking the QRP box in the Entry Class column on the summary sheet. QRP stations should also indicate an Entry Class. QRP competition is independent of Entry Class.

Awards:
Plaques will be awarded to the highest-scoring IL Fixed Station High Power, IL Fixed Station Low Power, IL Mobile, IL Rover, IL Portable, IL 2 County Line Portable, Outside Illinois Station High Power, and Outside Illinois Station Low Power. Plaques will also be awarded, regardless of entry class or station location, to the station reporting the highest raw Phone only QSO total, the highest raw CW only QSO total and the highest raw Mixed Mode QSO total. (Note: Illinois county line or county corner QSO multipliers do not apply for the raw QSO awards.)
Certificates will be awarded to the 2nd through 5th place IL Fixed Stations, High Power, the 2nd through 5th place IL Fixed Stations, Low Power, the 2nd through 5th place IL Mobiles, the 2nd through 5th place IL Rovers, the top IL and the top Outside Illinois QRP stations, and the highest scoring station (reporting at least 25 IL contacts) in each state, province, and country. Certificates will also be awarded to the top 3 IL single county Portables, the 2nd and 3rd place IL 2 county line Portables, the top 3 IL 3 county line Portables and 2nd and 3rd place IL four county line Portables. As certificates are delivered in electronic format via email, all entrants are requested to include a valid email address on their summary sheet. If a certificate winner desires a hard copy version, the WIARC will do so for a donation 0f $2.50 to cover the costs of printing and mailing.

Illinois Club Competition: 
Illinois entrants are encouraged to include the name of their local club on their entries. A traveling plaque sponsored by the Western Illinois Amateur Radio Club will be updated with name and score of the top IL club aggregate score.
Illinois Edible Award: Any Outside Illinois operator who makes at least 200 IL QSOs or works at least 75 IL counties will receive an ‘Illinois Edible Award’.

Logs: 
All entrants who use computerized logging are required to submit logs in electronic format. Do not submit a computer printed log from a logging program without also submitting the electronic file (i.e. Cabrillo file) as the scoring and verification process starts by transferring all log data into a master Excel file. Hand written paper logs which are accompanied by an official ILQP Summary Sheet will be accepted for manual transcription by the Committee.

Electronic logs: 
Cabrillo format is preferred. Those entrants using a program that does not produce a Cabrillo file for submission should contact the ILQP Contest Committee concerning acceptable formatting. Electronic logs should be sent as an e-mail attachment to n9jf at arrl.net . Participants without e-mail access wishing to submit an electronic log should send the Cabrillo file on a DOS formatted 3-1/2 inch floppy disk, a 5 inch CD-ROM, or a ‘thumb drive’ by mail. Disks and ‘thumb drives’ should be mailed to WIARC, P.O. Box 3132, Quincy IL 62305-3132. Disks and ‘thumb drives will not be returned unless accompanied by as SASE with sufficient return postage.

Paper logs: 
A paper log shall be hand written and indicate the entrant’s QTH, the band and mode, UTC, the call of the station worked, RST sent and received, and the state, province, IL county, or DX country. New multipliers must be marked in the log. Paper log submissions must be accompanied by a completed ILQP summary sheet (can be downloaded, printed from the website or requested from the sponsor with SASE). Paper logs should be mailed to WIARC, P.O. Box 3132, Quincy IL 62305-3132.
Logs that do not comply with submission requirements will be classified as Check Logs and will not be eligible for awards.
Rev 0 – 5 September 2016

Submission deadline: 
Logs sent by e-mail must be received by and logs sent by mail must be postmarked by midnight, CST November 23, 2017. A list of all logs received will be posted to the ILQP webpage. Electronic logs received by e-mail will also be acknowledged by return e-mail. Entrants assume responsibility for contacting the event sponsor if they do not receive confirmation or if their call is not included in the “logs received” listing.

Disqualification: 
Participants are expected to follow good Amateur practices and operate within the restrictions of their license and in accordance with ILQP Rules. Compelling evidence to the contrary may serve as grounds for disqualification. The decision of the Illinois QSO Party Committee shall be final. Rules, summary sheet, and other information are available for download at http://www.w9awe.org/ILQP2017.html .
You are invited to join the ILQSO email reflector at http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/ilqso .

Miscellaneous:
County Name Abbreviations: Participants are reminded that a proper log record of a contact with an Illinois station in this event requires the name of the Illinois County where that station is located be entered as part of each QSO record. It is quite acceptable to enter either the complete and correctly spelled county name or the unique abbreviated form of the county name. To facilitate the use of abbreviations, a list of recommended Illinois County name abbreviations is included every year as part of the ILQP Summary sheet. Each Illinois County has an established 4 letter abbreviation (Lee County excepted) shown in this list and which has been in use in this event for many years. Unfortunately, logs are submitted every year with all manner of variation and corruption of these abbreviations. In the past the ILQP Committee has been very lenient in not busting QSO’s due to the use of a non-standard abbreviation as long as there is some unambiguous clue in the abbreviation used as to the actual county name. In some cases, we even find that the wrong county name has been used. This often involves White (WHIT) and Whiteside (WTSD) counties as well as Mason (MASN) and Macon (MACN) counties. The ILQP Committee asks that each entrant review the list of county name abbreviations on the summary sheet and use only these abbreviations in their log entries and to make sure the correct abbreviation for a given county is used. As mentioned, there has been great leniency in the past for the use of highly corrupted, widely varying or totally incorrect abbreviations. However, as this event is now generating a master log each year of nearly 50,000 QSO’s, manual intervention by committee members in the scoring process is becoming tedious and time consuming. And so, a word to the wise, in the future, this leniency will not be continued as a part of the scoring process.

QSO Record Minimum Data: 
Each entrant is asked to review their log file prior to submission to ensure that every QSO record (i.e. each line) includes the following minimum data: operating frequency or band; operating mode; GMT date; GMT time; the call sign of your station; the RS(T) sent; the location of your station; the call sign of the station contacted; the RS(T) received; and the location of the station contacted. In addition, in a Cabrillo log file, each record should include the following data: ‘QSO:’ in the first field of each line. Please examine the sample excel spreadsheet generated Cabrillo file that is available for down load on the WIARC ILQP web page. Also please review the sample log file at the end of the document for help in determining compliance with the preferred format.
Cabrillo File Header Information: Prior to submitting a log file, entrants should review the information contained in the header field of their Cabrillo file to make sure it is complete and accurate. In particular, make sure entry class, personal information, call sign, station location, and club affiliation are correctly shown. The header information is automatically pulled and used by the processing software. Please examine the sample excel spreadsheet generated Cabrillo file that is available for down load on the WIARC ILQP web page.



   
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