IL QSO Party was BLAST!

I'm posting this all over the internet.. I enjoyed myself so much! And I always thought State QSO Parties were boring....

I participated in the Illinois QSO Party (Ham Radio Contest) yesterday for a few hours. The purpose of the contest is to work as many of Illinois's 102 Counties as you can in 8 hours. I only participated for a couple of hours. I managed 48 contacts with 38 Counties. I had a blast once I worked out some bugs with my logging software (Operator error).

Scott Wheelhouse KC9SIW came by and worked his first HF. He made several contacts. Good Job Scott!

I managed to work some very difficult counties (no hams are active there).

My Big Brother Mike Hays KC9ZQU helped me get Henderson County. He's the ONLY active Ham in Henderson County. Thanks Mike!

Thanks go out to KC9FSU for McDonough County (The county I live in). There were Hams who parked their cars/trucks on county lines in some of the less active counties and allowed me to work 3 or even 4 of these hard to get counties. Thanks to them. At least one traveled here from Indiana to do so. N9FN from Indiana, N9RQ, W9ABG, ND9E, WR9L, K0ATC, and K9Z......Thanks for the "County Corners" guys!

Well, that's the whole thing in a nutshell! Know this, I'll be working on improving my antennas all year folks. Next year, I'm in it to WIN IT!

OH YEAH! Thanks to those who worked so hard organizing this contest!