[WIQPmail] Illinois QSO Party, 1700 UTC Sunday, October 22, 2023 to 0100 UTC , Monday, October 23, 2023

Tue Oct 17 17:31:00 CDT 2023

Illinois QSO Party

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ILQP | WIARC - The Western Illinois Amateur Radio Club

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Announcing the 2023 Illinois QSO Party
Sponsored by the Western Illinois Amateur Radio Club
Date/Time: 1700 UTC October 22, 2023 to 0100 UTC October 23, 2023
Bands: 160 through 2 meters, excluding WARC bands (60, 30, 17 and 12 meters)
Exchange: IL stations give RS/T and county; others give RS/T and state, province or countryScoring: Phone QSO: 1 point; CW/digital QSO 2 points. No repeater QSOs. All stations are limited to one transmitted signal at a time. (But see new “Unlimited” category below). 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 2/3/4 counties count as 2/3/4 counties and 2/3/4 QSOs.IL stations multiply points by the sum of IL counties, US states, VE provinces and DXCC countries (maximum 5) worked. Canada, KH6 and KL7 do not count as DX entities.Additional DX contacts count for points but not multipliers. Non-IL stations multiply points by the number of IL counties worked.
Entry Classes:
IL Fixed Station, High Power. Permanent station location, single county, transmitter power exceeding 100 watts PEP. (Note change…was 200 watts PEP)

IL Fixed Station, Low Power. Permanent station location, single county, transmitter power not to exceed 100 watts PEP. (Note change….was 200 watts 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 for ILQP).

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

Illinois Rover: Station operating from more than one non-permanent location. Single-county, county line and county corner operations are 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 when moving or stopped.

Outside Illinois, High Power: Any fixed, portable or mobile station operating from outside the state of Illinois with transmitter power exceeding 100 watts PEP (Notechange: was 200 watts)

Outside Illinois: Low Power: Any fixed, portable or mobile station operating from outside the state of Illinois with a transmitter power not exceeding 100 watts PEP (Note change: was 200 watts).

QRP competition: A QRP entrant shall certify that the operation was with transmitter power at all 
times not exceeding 5 watts by indicating QRP in the entry class in the Cabrillo file or checking 
the QRP box on the summary sheet.
Unlimited: (New category) Stations wishing to employ multiple transmitted signals simultaneously at a single site may enter as “Unlimited”. This class is created as an experiment to encourage groups to train new operators and allow several the opportunity to participate.
Spotting: Spotting of stations worked, especially mobile and rover stations, is encouraged. All categories of entrants are allowed to self-spot. (Change from previous years.)
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, 2-County Line Portable, Outside IL High Power and Outside IL Low Power stations. Plaques will also be awarded, regardless of entry class or station location, to the stations making the highest number of raw phone QSOs, raw cw QSOs and raw mixed-mode QSOs.

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, 2ⁿᵈ through 5ᵗʰ place IL Mobiles, 2ⁿᵈ through 5ᵗʰ place IL Rovers, the top IL and Outside IL QRP entrants, the top 3 IL single-county portables, 2ⁿᵈ and 3ʳᵈ place IL 2-county portables, top 3 IL 3-county portables, top 3 IL 4-county portables and the highest-scoring (reporting at least 25 contacts) stations in each US State, VE province and DXCC country.

As certificates are delivered in electronic format via e-mail, all entrants are requested to provide a valid e-mail address in the Cabrillo file or on the summary sheet.

Illinois Club Competition: Illinois entrants are encouraged to include the name of their local club on their entries.

ILQP Outstanding Achievement Award: Non-IL stations working at least 200 contacts or 75 IL counties will receive a special certificate.

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 providing the electronic file (Cabrillo file), as the scoring and verification process starts by transferring all log data into a master Excel file. Hand-written paper logs accompanied by an official ILQP summary sheet will be accepted for transcription by the ILQP committee. Those who submit paper logs absolve the committee of all responsibility for miscopied log information. (See below)
Electronic logs: Cabrillo format is preferred. Those entrants using a program that does not provide Cabrillo files for submission should contact the committee concerning acceptable formatting. Use of the fill-in Excel file available on the ILQP site Illinois QSO Party https://w9awe.org/ilqp/ under Sample_Excel_Log is encouraged for non-Cabrillo logs.

Electronic logs should be sent as attachments to n9jf at arrl.net. 
Please do NOT send .adi nor .adif files!
When you attach your log file, check to see that it is the right file. Every year we get a few logs for CQWW, NYQP, and other contests.
Logs that do not comply with submission requirements will be classified as Check Logs and will not be eligible for awards.
Paper Logs: A paper log shall be hand-written and indicate, for each contact, theentrant’s QTH, band, mode, UTC, and the call and location of the station worked. Paper log submissions must be accompanied by a completed ILQP Summary Sheet (can be downloaded from ILQP Summary Sheet  https://w9awe.org/ilqp/ ILQP Summary Sheet, printed from the website or requested (with SASE) from the sponsor. Paper logs should be mailed to WIARC, POBox 3132, Quincy IL 62305-3132. The committee is not responsible for transcription errors.
Submission Deadline: Logs sent by e-mail must be received by the sponsor, and paper logs postmarked by midnight Central Time November 23, 2023. A list of all logs received will be posted to the ILQP webpage. Electronic logs submitted will be acknowledged by return e-mail within 48 hours. Entrants assume responsibility for contacting the sponsor if they do not received confirmation or if their call is not included in the “logs received” listing on the website.
Disqualification: Participants are expected to follow good amateur practices, conform to the DX Code of Ethics and operate within their license privileges and in accordance with ILQP rules. Compelling evidence to the contrary may serve as grounds for disqualification. Decisions of the ILQP Committee shall be final.
Rules, summary sheet, and other information are available at Illinois QSO Party https://w9awe.org/ilqp/. 
You are invited to join the ILQP reflector at Illinois QSO Party Reflector  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 (and in the list on the website). Each Illinois county has an established 4 letter abbreviation (Lee County excepted) shown in this list which has been in use in this event for many years. PLEASE PRINT OUT THIS LIST OF OFFICIAL ABBREVIATIONS AHEAD OF TIME AND HAVE IT AT YOUR OPERATING POSITION!
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 notbusting 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; UTC date; UTC 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 download on the WIARC ILQP web page.
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