2015 Illinois QSO Party Log Analysis
The log submission deadline for the 2015 Illinois QSO party has passed and with it, I decided to go back and analyze my performance in this year’s contest. The full report is here along with audio recordings. It was pretty interesting to see that in my best hour of the contest I averaged 1.5 qso’s a minute for 88 total contacts.
One of the things to note in this contest is that there were quite a few stations on multiple county lines which added to the excitement. You can see some of the multi county line stations here.
You can see the full breakdown below:
| Period, min. | QSOs | QSOs per minute |
QSOs per hour |
From | To | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Time | QSO # | Time | QSO # | ||||
| 10 | 26 | 2.6 | 156 | 18-Oct-2015 21:40 | 94 | 18-Oct-2015 21:50 | 119 |
| 20 | 38 | 1.9 | 114 | 18-Oct-2015 20:51 | 33 | 18-Oct-2015 21:11 | 70 |
| 30 | 50 | 1.7 | 100 | 18-Oct-2015 20:45 | 28 | 18-Oct-2015 21:15 | 77 |
| 60 | 88 | 1.5 | 88 | 18-Oct-2015 20:51 | 33 | 18-Oct-2015 21:52 | 120 |
| 120 | 150 | 1.3 | 75 | 18-Oct-2015 20:47 | 29 | 18-Oct-2015 22:48 | 178 |
This year was one of my better showings in ILQP and a vast improvement over last year when I was in the QRP category. I’m hoping that with a better 20M antenna setup, and increased focus on 40 and 80M, that I can improve my score in the 2016 contest. The lack of a resonant 20 meter antenna has definitely impacted me in contests for 2015 and one of the lessons I’m learning is that as we approach solar minimum again, I’m going to need solid antennas on 80/40/20 to remain competitive. 15 meters (where I have a semi decent signal) was never even on my radar for this type of contest.