On sprint day I arrived a little after 6 PM local time and set up the new antenna system in wind-free and snow-free conditions. I was done by 6:45 so I got on the air and tuned through the beacon subband. Virginia beacon WA1ZMS/B FM07 was 5x3 which is a pretty good initial indication that the untested omni would work. A test transmission was successful with no smoke or explosions, so I was off and running. A good first hour of average troposcatter was followed by upward swells of QSB in the second hour that allowed me to work W3BFC FM18 on the eastern shore of MD at 5x5 (and he was 5x6). The QSB died off in the third hour, but I was still able to work West Virginia station K8RYU EM99 at 356 miles. In the fourth hour I was still picking up new grids and worked Ohio station K8TQK EM89 for a best DX of 442 miles. That's a longer DX than last year's best DX when I was using a pair of 6-el Yagis from a higher hilltop with fewer obstructions. Not bad for an omni.

Using a high-performance omni from a quiet hilltop was an interesting new experience. It allowed me to hear a high number of stations still choosing the same run frequencies as other stations and stepping on them without knowing the other was there. I have heard that before with beams, but it is more pronounced with the omni. The way to reduce the chances of that happening is to encourage folks to use a frequency that ends in something other than the popular 5 or 0. With an omni, I am unable to work one of those stations without bothering the others, so I resorted to waiting to see what happens (wasting my time), tuning the band looking for other activity, or calling CQ nearby in hopes of catching one of them tuning the band. None of those methods is as effective as calling the stations on their frequencies, and I missed easy contacts as a result. In the future, perhaps it's better for me to use an omni to call CQ in the frenzied first hour only, then switch to a beam for the rest of the event.