K6JSS
The conditions were SO much better this year than last, I had a great time running QRP. I think my total time was only about 4 hours, but I had a blast.

KB9ZUV
First state QSO party I ever tried. Lots of fun.

W9LJ
We operated in combination with the Calumet Council Boy Scout Jamboree that was being held at the Lake County Fairgrounds.

W9THD
Many tnx to the mobiles!

KT9L
Had a great time this year.

N4YHC
Had an unexpected trip to Michigan City and to Chicago - so I worked ROVER since I worked at home and while mobile across Porter, Lake, and Laporte Counties. I had fun working so many stations. This will be last INQP as an Indiana resident as we are moving back to 4-land later this month. Thanks!

K3GHH
Score=36(QSOs)x31(Ctys)x2(CW); mixed INQP and NEQP --- a few 7QPs too! It's always fun to work the rovers.

NG7Z
Lots of fun with three parties going on.

W9GT
I had a great time this year even though I had to tear down my home brew amplifier and replace a loading capacitor right before the event. I was finishing it up about 5 minutes before the start and actually was still tightening screws as I began operating. Conditions were OK for the most part, but I had an extremely high noise levelon 40 and 20 for several hours. It made working the weak ones a real challenge. Sorry I missed the air mobile, but was distracted by very high contact rates for a while on 40 Phone...lots of fun!! Kept me busy! I didn't want to leave. Worked more CW this year than last, but still found the activity level on CW to be much lower than on phone. It was difficult to maintain any decent contact rates on CW. All-in-all, not a bad effort for me, but I learned where I need to work on a few things. Certainly appreciated Mel, KJ9C/M efforts...worked him several times at various locations.

WB9ICL
My time limited but had a great time

WB9LRK
Fun time and enjoyed my limited operating time.

NQ2W
Had fun...thanks for the opportunity and for hearing my QRP signal. Hope to see you all next year. 73, Will, NQ2W

NU9DE
Operated portable Wayne county. Collected 8 new counties for worked all Indiana, up to 80 now.

VE5KS
Unfortunately I did not hear too many stations on, could be because of all the other contests going on.

KK4CIS
It was a lot of fun to work a handful of IN stations duringa busy contest weekend.

K9JIG
S8 QRN & higher static crashes made for not much fun.

N3KN
More QSOs than last year! Thanks to everyone who played in the contest. 73 - Kay N3KN

N9LYY
LITTLE ACTIVITY ON 20 METERS
MORE OUT-OF-STATE PARTICIPANTS LOOKING FOR INQP THIS YEAR

KJ9C
S/P 17 ph,44 CW. Counties 30ph,38 cw. QSO points 1323 without dupes. Points ~170K.
Seventeen counties activated.

N8XX
Great show! Band conditions were very favorable this year, even though there was a thunderstorm coming through about 200 miles north of me which made QRN on 75/80 quite a challenge. 40 metres was short almost until the close of the event, and 75/80 opened up before sundown. Mobiles and county line portables added considerably to the multiplier count. Thanks to the organizers for a FB party!

K9DUR
Probably my best INQP ever. (Yeah, MUCH better than the year I turned in a log with 1 QSO!)

Started out working a bunch of 7-landers on 15m & then switched to 40m, which was definitely the money band. Made Q's on all bands but 160m & 10m. 160m antenna is down & didn't even try 10m.

Picked up a bunch of new counties, more than enough to get me past the 60 needed for the basic WAI award. Thanks to WN9O/M, AE8M/M, KJ9C/M, & WB9CIF/M for most of the new ones.

Tim, N9LF, worked me on 40m SSB to complete all 92 counties for his WAI -- congratulations! Then Mel, KJ9C/M, popped in, & I was able to log Vigo County for myself. (Man, he was loud! But then, he was just across the river from me.)

It seemed that the strongest signal on 40m was ALWAYS WN9O/M, with N9FN a close 2nd.

QRN was low on 80m, but couldn't hear very many stations. I quit about 3 hours early -- had some stuff to do to get ready for church the next morning.

W4UCZ
Nice turnout! Thanks for a fun Saturday.

K9NN
Had a great time again at W9RE's station. I was hoping for a personal best but came up just short. I think I have a better strategy figured out for next year. As others have mentioned, 80m was really noisy, especially on phone. I am ashamed to say I did not say on my phone runs on 40m, "mobiles only" enough so know I missed some good multipliers (sorry Mel, my bad).Will do better on that front next year for sure. Thanks to all the mobiles and the INQP organizers for a great event!

ND3R
Could not work the whole contest as had other engagements for the weekend but still enjoyed it. See you all next year.

WT9U/r
Operated as a static mobile station this year since I didn't have a driver. Operated from five different locations on county lines activating 10 counties operating 7+18 of the 12 hours with the rest of the time on the road.

Planned the route with Google Earth looking for decent spots to park the vehicle that would be out of everyone's way. That really worked pretty well. I put those coordinates in the Garmin GPS and was able to drive right to them. The Whitley/Kosciusko location was a bit busier than I had anticipated but I was off the road so not an issue. Like several of the others I have magnetic signs that say "Amateur Radio Exercise" on them so I don't get hassled too much. One guys stopped there and didn't have a clue what ham radio was. NW9O saw the signs and stopped for a chat @ the Marshall/Fulton line. The Elkhart County sheriff stopped by my last location with 10 minutes to go and said no problem, didn't even ask for my ID. He said they have lots of people sit on that remote cul de sac and smoke dope so he always comes down there to check.

Nice to finally have some propagation on 40m and work a number of other mobiles.

W9NWN
First let me say that I appreciate everyone that I made contact with and I hope that I have everyone in the log. Also for every-ones patience's as I logged the contacts.

This year was a first for me as far as going out and working alone. My antenna worked great as well as my radio ( will be the last time I am sure since I bragged on them ) I was able to hear everyone that transmitted even the mobiles. Did not get all of the counties that I wanted but 48 is better than no counties so I have a goal for next year.

Had a couple of issues that will get worked out over the next few weeks, for me the weather was perfect, had a very low noise place to work at, did start getting static crashes lots of QRM later in the evening. Looking forward to next year and getting everyone in the log again as well as more. And agree with comments that 40 was the money band and really quiet, 75 really noisy.

Location: Carroll, Co./ Field Day type portable setup. / Lowpower(100-watts) / 40/75-80 (NVIS) antenna / Ten Tec Eagle / SSB only

N9KOG
This was the third year I've worked the QSO party. The first year I made maybe 20 contacts, last year I made 50 (and forgot to turn in my log) and this year I made 98. I would have made more, but I was focusing almost solely on county hunting. Additionally, I was off the air from about 3-8 due to a prior engagement my wife and I had. Overall great fun was had. Made a bunch of contacts on 40ssb during the day. When I got home, though, most of the 40 activity seemed to have disappeared and I was able to find some stations on 75m. Overall I had a blast.

I would have to say, though, my favorite contact was to a guy 16 miles away from me on 75 meters. I live in Floyd County and he's up in Washington County. He asked me to send him a QSL card so his friends would believe he made a contact on 75m that close.

Anyways, it was a very fun day.

W9THD
Well the family thinks I'm crazy but I did all 12 hours yesterday and had plenty of fun. Here's a summary. I started by working 20 and 15 meters mostly to the 7QP folks. 15 was in real decent shape until very late into the afternoon. 20 meters was pretty much wall to wall and I had trouble finding a place to settle in for a run. I improved my antenna situation on the high bands this year by going to a hex beam at 50 feet. The main difference between that and my 80 meter loop on the higher bands is that most of the time I get acknowledged on the first call when I'm doing S&P. That's nice.

40 meters was very nice through the entire QP and it was fun to find the mobiles out there on both CW and SSB. This was a great band to run on and whenever it slowed down I would either switch modes or jump back to the higher bands. Later in the day I spent a considerable amount of time on 40 and closer to sunset went to 80 meters to pick up what I could. The 80 meter loop is a great antenna for working in-state contacts on that band. I just wish I had been able to find more contacts there. 80 meters is a pretty difficult proposition for the mobiles, but I sure wish there were more fixed stations in state that were active on that band. They would have been easy pickings.

The only concern I had technically was with the N3FJP software. I used version 2.0 for the first time. For the other state QSOP I was forcing their county abbreviation by placing a dash after the state abbreviation. But it appears to me that when I did that it was counting it as a new multiplier, even if I had worked that state before. So I spent 30 minutes after the contest to edit my log and take those county abbreviations out, just leaving the states.

So I didn't include a claimed score in my log. Made a total of 229 SSB contacts and 156 CW contacts. I made a conscious effort to remind myself to work CW for the extra points, but I think my ratio between modes is probably pretty close to last year, so I'll have to make an even greater effort next time.

Worked 75 Indiana counties, thanks in large part to the mobiles. I'm going to have to get after my friends next door in Noble County, which kept staring at me from the COUNTY REMAINING list.

Thanks again to everyone who makes INQP possible.

KJ9B
This was the first year that I've had the Saturday of the contest off from work, and I intended to make the best of it. I called CQ on 40 meters around 11:30 local time, and had a nice QSO with a fellow in NY to kind of "hold" a freq. When noon came, I told him he was my first contact in the INQP. I didn't "bust my butt", but I did have fun. It was really good to work Mel, as well as the airplane mobile, along with a few other mobile stations. I ended up with 369 Qs, with 20 and 40 being my best bands. All in all, a really fun time. Hopefully, I can work my schedule to be off next year!

KJ9D (N9NS, op)
I was out of town much of the day and did not get on until about 6:30 PM. Spent the first three hours running stations on 20 SSB. Conditions on that band were great and I had 308 QSO's in three hours. That was real fun. I took a 1/2 hour break then switched to 40. The propagation condx were OK but QRN was terrible - 20-over static made it difficult to copy many stations. After an hour on 40, I spent the last hour on 80 which also had bad QRN. It was tough digging out some calls and my apologies to anyone who called me and I was unable to copy.

N9LJX
Got off to a late start so I wasn't able to be on 20 or 15 as long as I had hoped. Tried 80 a couple of times, but I just don't have the right wires in the air. More RF in the shack than anywhere else....

I am EXTREMELY disappointed that I have more SSB qso's than CW. I just couldn't stir up the action.

Thanks to the mobiles! Mel found me on phone several times. WN9O is just always loud! And the air mobile was cool to work.

W9I
This was the first year for us to operate in the InQP. I got the idea after meeting Fred W9NIO and approached him with the possibility to operate from his QTH in Switzerland County. Fred welcomed the idea and the plan was put in motion. The group has already started talking about next year's event and what we can do to improve our effort. The highlight for me was Fred stated he wasn't going to operate and after making many QSOs I think he is hooked and doubt that Switzerland will be as rare as it has been in the past. What a great job by all the planners and many thanks to the mobiles for a lot of fun. 73 de W9I

AA8HH on CW

AA8HH on SSB

K8CD and W9NIO

K8CD, K8DV, AA8HH and W9NIO

K8CR on SSB

K8DV on CW

SSB station

W9NIO on SSB

W9NIO, K8CR and AA8HH

N9FN
N9FN/p

On the Elkhart/St. Joseph line

Dipole end in Elkhart

Dipole end in St. Joseph

Interior view

Parked

K9FN (CW op)

N9FN (SSB op)

Night view

KV9W/p
KV9W/p on the Wayne and Randolph county line

This photo from 2011...

KJ9C/m
KJ9C (mobile in 17 counties)

WA6KHK Got some rovers this year. Good job! You had to compete with 7QP and NEQP!

WN9O/r
First of all I want to give A BIG THANKS TO MEL and many others for helping organize the 2012 INQP. I heard more IN stations that ever before. I can't wait to see how many new counties I picked up. Our final count was 54 IN counties and most were CW & SSB contacts. Maybe I can finally order that WAI endorsement sticker : (I hope you have then ready Mark!).

Congrats to N9LF for working Ray in Vigo county (his 92nd county for WAI) during the INQP. What a treat he must have had working Ray. BTW - he had a great signal during the INQP. We must have missed him while we were close to TIPP around the 0000Z time as the skip may have been too long for a short hop qso.

We are still sorting out the logs as most mobile & rovers will likely do (especially with the added NEQP & 7QP q's we made). Most certainly I will let the log score itself after we send it into Tim.

This was certainly a memorable INQP for me and not for the better. Murphy hit a few times and oh well.... I will have to tear down a flag pole mast and replace some of the inserts as some have cracked and broke during the not so harsh winter we had. These problems caused some setup and teardown delays, so we did not get to run portable as much as we have in the past. Repairs will be made so the pole extends and collapses more easily. It will certainly be ready for next year. The mobile setup had a Kenwood TS-480HX connected to a Predator antenna. Wow this antenna really works! I just need to get the engine noise down. I had a conversation with Dave, N9FN, about the pile-up we had on 40 CW, but we couldn't hear them due to the engine noise. I guess more testing will have to be done before next years' event.

We also had a K3 setup on a mobile whip (20 meters), but just after we moved from our initial position the rig seemed to have some issues. The receiver de-sensed and the power output went from 100W to 38W output. We also smelled some electrical burning in the vehicle and as you may have guessed it was the K3. We were only into the INQP for an hour and the rig was toast! I will be contacting Electraft to see what my options are. I don't know what happened, but it sure put a damper on the excitement of the INQP.

I think we worked most of the mobile stations. We did not hear the aero mobile (we got on that band too late) or AB9LE/m (not surprising as we worked CW most of the time). We worked many stations multiple times and if I can figure out how to get the info out of Writelog, I will see which station worked us the most.

No Margaritas on Cinco De Mayo, but plenty of mucho kudos to the stations that followed us around (even the mobiles!). It was great hearing the KJ9C, WB9CIF, WT9U & AE8M mobile stations work us so much. And what about the portable stations that set up for this event!! Great job!

Lastly a BIG THANKS IN ADVANCE to Tim, N9LF, and Mike, N9NS, for the upcoming log scoring. I can't imagine how much effort they put into scoring this event. Thanks guys!!!

Even with a dead K3, we are looking forward to the 2013 INQP.
Best of 73's,
Kevin, wn9o & Don, w9iu

Pictures from INQP 2003

WN9O mobile

W9IU

W9IU