Just two days before the sprint there was a Tornado Watch posted for my area. Thankfully, all the severe weather and even the rain were erased by contest time, and I was setting up the antenna system in calm winds and warm temperatures at 1970 feet ASL.

With the best tropo predicted to be off to my west, I started the sprint by calling CQ with the beam in that direction. In 3 minutes I worked 3 stations in 3 grids and wished I could keep that pattern going for the whole sprint (I ended up working 10 consecutive QSOs before working my first repeat grid). VA3ELE FN03 was 5x7 from 213 miles away, although it doesn't hurt that he was using 18 wavelengths of combined boom length. Conditions remained good out that way, and I picked up VE3WY FN04 which is usually a tough grid for me to find. I ended the first hour with 14 QSOs--that's more than I usually make in the entire sprint.

KC2SFU showed up in the second hour to observe the goings on for a while. The second hour brought 6 more QSOs and some new grids, including VA3ZV EN82, my best DX at 327 miles (527 km). I did a lot of calling on CW starting in the 3rd and continuing into the 4th hour. The 3rd and 4th hours brought 4 QSOs each. I finished the sprint with 28 QSOs/16 grids, a sound beating of last year's result. This is now my best 432 sprint so far, and a great way to end the thrilling 2013 VHF contesting season. Official results are here.