[WIQPmail] Illinois QSO Party, 1700Z October 20 to 0100Z October 21, 2019 GMT

[Mark Thompson]

Announcing the 2019 Illinois QSO Party…
Sponsored by The Western Illinois Amateur Radio Club. Inc.
Date/Time: 1700Z October 20 to 0100Z October 21, 2019 GMT
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.

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.

Submission deadline: Logs sent by e-mail must be received by and logs sent by mail must be postmarked
by midnight, CST November 21, 2019. 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/ILQP.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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