By Ken Rogner, N8KR
The Fort Wayne Radio Club (FWRC) encourages members to enter the club competition of the Indiana QSO Party (INQP), Saturday, May 2, from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. ET.
The club competition relies on aggregate scores submitted by individual club members. That means all we need to do is get on the air from our home stations, make some contacts on HF (SSB, CW or both), indicate our FWRC affiliation on our logs and then submit them.
During the 12-hour event, stations from all over Indiana will call, “CQ Indiana QSO Party” (“CQ INQP” on CW). The easiest way to participate is to simply answer those CQs and log the signal reports and county names those stations provide. Of course, you can also get points by contacting other stations. More on that in a future article.
Participating stations provide a signal report and location (see below regarding logging locations). During contests like this, everyone sends “59” on SSB and “599” on CW, regardless of actual signal quality.
Our logs must contain the call sign, band or frequency, signal report, and location of each contact. We must log the county of every Indiana station. The QSO Party website has a list of official county abbreviations that we can log and that others will expect to receive. A PDF version of that list is available for download from this website, using the link at the bottom of this article.
You may use logging software, such as WriteLog, N3FJP, or N1MM. Although the INQP website suggests several others, these are the ones that work the best. Both WriteLog and N3FJP require purchase. N1MM Logger+ is totally free and supports all contests and state QSO parties without having to download extra files. Like N3FJP and WriteLog, it can interface with your radio, connect to PacketCluster and producing files not only for contest submission but also for uploading to LoTW and whatever computer logbook you normally operate.
Installing the free N1MM software is a two-step process. First, download and run the latest full installer from the top of the list on this web page. Then, download and run the latest update file from the top of the list on this web page.
You may also log contacts manually on paper. I’ve designed a special log sheet for the FWRC along with a summary sheet and will email them to FWRC members. PDF version are also available for download from this website, using the links below. This will make it super easy for you to casually add to the Fort Wayne Radio Club participation.
The INQP website has detailed contest rules.
This is our 100th year as a club! We are an active club. Last weekend during the Straight Key Century Club Weekend Sprintathon, the aggregate score from members of the Fort Wayne Radio club was more than the aggregate scores from any individual state! More than 14 stations participated. Imagine what we can do as a club for Indiana QSO party.
As additional incentive to FWRC members, the club is offering an INQP Centennial Award. Score and submit 100 INQP points for our 100th anniversary and receive a beautiful commemorative FWRC 2020 Centennial INQP certificate!
It is time to start planning. To help answer questions and further discuss our participation, we will conduct a special net Monday, April 20 at 7 p.m. on the 146.91 MHz repeater. We will have one additional net just prior to INQP.
Contact me with any questions at n8kr@arrl.net. You can also typically find me on the 146.91 MHz repeater.