Take the Challenge and Celebrate 200 Years of Illinois Statehood

The Western Illinois ARC will sponsor a special operating event in 2018 to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the admittance of Illinois to the Union in 1818. Join us on this special occasion to commemorate this important event in our Illinois State history. The WIARC will offer two award certificates during the Challenge special event period. Contacts made with Illinois stations during the event may be applied to either or both awards where permitted by rule. The two awards are the Illinois Challenge Worked All Counties Award and the Illinois Challenge IL200 Award.

The operating event will take place starting August 9, 2018 with the opening of the 2018 Illinois State Fair and will conclude on December 3, 2018 on the 200th anniversary of Illinois joining the union in 1818. Participating Illinois stations will be on the air multiple times from all 102 Illinois counties during the period using their own calls. Participating Illinois stations will be encouraged to sign /IL200 to indicate they are participating in the special event. Bonus Stations will include the WIARC club stations W9OAB and W9AWE, and the Four State Capital Special Event stations. Other Illinois club stations and many individual operators will also be on the air to provide Illinois QSO opportunities. Included in the award operating period will be the 2018 Illinois QSO Party which will take place on October 21. All QSOs may be applied to both awards where appropriate. Illinois stations may be worked once regardless of band, mode or county for the IL200 Award. Illinois stations may be worked once per county regardless of band or mode for the Illinois Worked All Counties Award. OSOs with county line or county corner stations are permitted for credit for 2, 3 or 4 counties as indicated by the Illinois station for the Worked All Counties Award. Contacts for both awards may be made by any mode on any amateur band 160M through 2M. (Note: WARC band QSO's are not allowed for credit in The Illinois QSO Party on October 21.)

The Illinois Challenge Worked All Counties Award

The first award certificate offered will be the the Illinois Challenge Worked All Counties Award available to any operator who makes at least one valid QSO with a station in each of the 102 Illinois counties during the award operating period. County line and county corner station QSOs are allowed for credit for the counties indicated by the Illinois operator. The award is band and mode insensitive. Each Illinois station may be worked in multiple counties.

The Illinois Challenge 200 Award

The the Illinois Challenge 200 Award Certificate will be available to any operator providing evidence of QSOs with Illinois stations with an accumulated point value of 200 or more. The award is band and mode insensitive and only one QSO per Illinois station call sign is allowed.

WIARC club station W9AWE: 25 points

WIARC club station W9OAB: 25 points

Illinois State Capitals Special Event Stations K9K, W9V, K9S and W9I (Aug 9-19): 15 Points each

Any other Illinois station: 3 points each

Log Submissions

Logs are to be submitted by email and only by using the forms linked below. Logs must be emailed to the WIARC by December 31, 2018. No paper log submissions or log files using other formats or forms submitted by means other than email will be accepted. The fillable PDF submission forms which may be downloaded below must be used for submitting log data and submitted only by email using the email button included in the form. Applicants are advised to print a copy of the completed form before emailing by clicking on the print button on the form. Your local printer will be automatically selected to print. Once printed submit the form by clicking on the email button. The form will be sent using your installed email client. NOTE: The completed log form cannot be saved to a local storage location thus the form should be filled only when all data is available to complete the application. Partially filled forms cannot be saved and retrieved later.

By clicking on one of the buttons above, the form will be presented by your browser but the fillable feature may not be active due to compatibility issues with the pdf viewer built into some browseres and the browser version. The log forms are interactive fillable PDF documents and you will need the Adobe PDF Reader which may be downloaded at www.get.adobe.com/reader/otherversions/. Once the Adobe Reader is installed and the form is open in your viewer, select the "Open With Different Viewer" button. Select Adobe Reader and the form will reopen with the fillable function active.

Finding Award Activity.

The WIARC will post information on planned operations where the operator(s) have forwarded details of their activity if the date/time/mode/band/location(s) and callsign are received ahead of the date of the operation. The button below will take you to a pdf document with the information as we have received it.

It is anticipated that Illinois stations planning to be active on the air for the award will post their planned activities on the Illinois QSO party reflector. Postings will take place during the entire Illinois Challenge Award period, not just for the ILQP date. For information on subscribing to the ILQP reflector, visit this page:

www.w9awe.org/ILQP Reflector.html

For further information or information, please contact Jim, N9JF at n9jf@arrl.net





