I had planned to enter the sprint as a rover, but due to running late, I decided to set up on the nearby hilltop 15 minutes from home as a single-op instead. I had been watching the forecast for days because rain was threatening to move in the night of the sprint. Upon arrival, skies were clear, and the plan was to begin tearing down at the first sign of rain hitting the windshield. So the antenna system went up and I was ready a few minutes before contest start time.
Here's a map showing conditions at 8:00 PM Eastern time during the sprint. As you can see, the blank map predicted no tropo for NY State and surrounding states. Indeed, the QSO total was down compared to the tropo years, but there was good local activity. For example, the first hour brought 14 QSOs (38%) which is about the best I've seen in the non-tropo versions of this event. This is due in large part to the 144.205 Morning Group getting on the air every day over the past couple years and inspiring folks to have fun with 2m SSB again. Many of the stations I worked in this sprint were from that group. One thing that kept the sprint interesting from start to finish was VE3CRU/R who has a tremendous signal with that base-station-sized yagi permanently mounted on his rover vehicle. I was happy to be able to work him in all 3 of his grid activations: FN14, then FN04, then FN03. Two of those were new grids for me, so I am even more appreciative of his hard work. Best DX to the east was AF1T on the island of Martha's Vinyard (FN41), for a distance of 265 miles. Best DX to the south appears to be K1RZ FM19 in Maryland (238 miles). Best to the northeast was K1WHS FN43 in Maine (248 miles). Best DX of the entire contest was K8TQK EM89 (Ohio) at 456 miles to the southwest. I did not hear any activity from FN00, 01, 02, FN11, FN23, 24. I lucked out: The rain stayed away for the entire contest, including the teardown of the antenna system.
BAND QSOs QSO UNIQUE STATES CANADIAN PTS. GRIDS PROVINCES ------------------------------------------------ 144 37 37 19 10 Ontario === claimed score: 703 ===
START-OF-LOG: 2.0 CALLSIGN: N2SLN CATEGORY: SINGLE-OP 144M HIGH CLAIMED-SCORE: 703 CONTEST: VHF-SPRINT-144MHZ-FALL CREATED-BY: WA7BNM Web2Cabrillo 1.12 NAME: ADDRESS: ADDRESS: EMAIL: OPERATORS: SOAPBOX: QSO: 144 PH 2012-09-17 1911 N2SLN FN22 AF1T FN41 QSO: 144 PH 2012-09-17 1914 N2SLN FN22 N2DCH FN22 QSO: 144 PH 2012-09-17 1918 N2SLN FN22 KC2SFU FN22 QSO: 144 PH 2012-09-17 1919 N2SLN FN22 VE3CRU/R FN14 QSO: 144 PH 2012-09-17 1926 N2SLN FN22 N1IBM FM29 QSO: 144 PH 2012-09-17 1928 N2SLN FN22 K2RMX FN20 QSO: 144 PH 2012-09-17 1929 N2SLN FN22 W1BS FN32 QSO: 144 PH 2012-09-17 1933 N2SLN FN22 WA3NUF FN20 QSO: 144 PH 2012-09-17 1937 N2SLN FN22 K1RZ FM19 QSO: 144 PH 2012-09-17 1938 N2SLN FN22 W2GPS FM19 QSO: 144 PH 2012-09-17 1940 N2SLN FN22 W9KXI FN12 QSO: 144 PH 2012-09-17 1943 N2SLN FN22 K1WHS FN43 QSO: 144 PH 2012-09-17 1953 N2SLN FN22 W2KV FN20 QSO: 144 PH 2012-09-17 1957 N2SLN FN22 K2SMN FN20 QSO: 144 PH 2012-09-17 2000 N2SLN FN22 K3TUF FN10 QSO: 144 PH 2012-09-17 2002 N2SLN FN22 NA2NY FN33 QSO: 144 PH 2012-09-17 2005 N2SLN FN22 K1TEO FN31 QSO: 144 PH 2012-09-17 2009 N2SLN FN22 N1RJX FN32 QSO: 144 PH 2012-09-17 2014 N2SLN FN22 N1MIW FN41 QSO: 144 PH 2012-09-17 2018 N2SLN FN22 NE1B FN42 QSO: 144 PH 2012-09-17 2019 N2SLN FN22 WZ1V FN31 QSO: 144 PH 2012-09-17 2022 N2SLN FN22 K1IIG FN31 QSO: 144 PH 2012-09-17 2037 N2SLN FN22 VE3CRU/R FN04 QSO: 144 PH 2012-09-17 2044 N2SLN FN22 WA3SRU FN20 QSO: 144 PH 2012-09-17 2046 N2SLN FN22 WB2RVX FM29 QSO: 144 PH 2012-09-17 2050 N2SLN FN22 K1TR FN42 QSO: 144 PH 2012-09-17 2053 N2SLN FN22 KA2LIM FN12 QSO: 144 PH 2012-09-17 2114 N2SLN FN22 N2NT FN20 QSO: 144 PH 2012-09-17 2129 N2SLN FN22 K2DH FN13 QSO: 144 PH 2012-09-17 2139 N2SLN FN22 K8TQK EM89 QSO: 144 PH 2012-09-17 0141 N2SLN FN22 NA2X FN13 QSO: 144 PH 2012-09-17 2151 N2SLN FN22 W3MTP FN21 QSO: 144 PH 2012-09-17 2156 N2SLN FN22 VE3ZV EN92 QSO: 144 PH 2012-09-17 2207 N2SLN FN22 VE3CRU/R FN03 QSO: 144 PH 2012-09-17 2217 N2SLN FN22 N3NGE FN20 QSO: 144 PH 2012-09-17 2231 N2SLN FN22 VA3ELE FN03 QSO: 144 PH 2012-09-17 2240 N2SLN FN22 W2UAD FN13 END-OF-LOG: