I chose two locations close to each other to reduce off-air time since the contest is only 4 hours long. The sites I used were two of my favorite rover sites, each used many times before. The first was in extreme eastern FN12. This location often sees excellent propagation into Ohio, and this night was one of those times. The second was an FN22 site that's a little lower in elevation, but has a downward slope in all directions and no foliage nearby. The weather was cool, but there was no rain to slow down the progress, and winds were calm. There were occasional bursts of QRN at the FN22 site, but I think the IC-7000 handled all types of interference better than the IC-706 series I had used for years.
The highlight of this sprint was the "good" (one step above moderate) tropo that set up between central NY and northern OH. Here's a map showing conditions at 8:00 Eastern time that morning. The tropo moved east throughout the day, and slowly south during the sprint. I was hitting stations in Ohio regularly, even from further-east grid FN22. Then WA9KRT EN61 showed up from northwest Indiana and gave me a new multiplier, new state, and the longest-distance contact I've ever had in any 2m fall sprint (579 miles). Of course, that's the kind of thing that can happen when the other station is running a 68-element array. I operated right through to the end and collected 50 QSOs total. That's the most QSOs I've collected in this event so far. AF1T, who was located on the island of Martha's Vinyard (FN41) was my longest distance reached to the east at 265 miles (427 km) for the third year in a row (from FN22). The tropo to the west was so fascinating that I forgot to turn the beam south to pick up all the activity along the east coast. As a result, I missed out on a chance to work North Carolina station K4QI FM06 for the third consecutive year which would have been 485 miles / 780 km from FN22. My best DX toward the southwest was K8TQK EM89 for a distance of 458 miles (737 km) from FN22. Turning the beam north from FN22 didn't get me any VE's from that direction, only from the west. I did not hear any activity from FN00, FN01, FN02, FN21, FN24, or FN33, but I did manage to win first place in the rover category (results in HTML format).
FN12:
BAND QSOs QSO UNIQUE
PTS. GRIDS
----------------------------
144 21 21 15
21 x 15 = 315
FN22:
BAND QSOs QSO UNIQUE
PTS. GRIDS
----------------------------
144 29 29 18
29 x 18 = 522
Claimed score: 315 + 522 = 837
from FN12xp: 2302 W2RJO FN23 2314 KA2LIM FN12 2322 W2EV FN03 2329 KC8ZJL EN71 454 miles (730 km) 2334 VE3ZV EN92vw 2336 N2LID FN12 2345 VE3KKL FN25 2346 W8KNO EN91 2351 W9KXI FN12 2353 WN8R EN91 0001 KB8O EN81wi 0011 K1WHS FN43 0012 K1TR FN42 0016 AK3E FM19 0021 VE3CVG FN25 0025 K8MR EN91 0028 KG9Z EN90 0029 WA8RJF EN91iq 0030 N8IEZ EN82mm 0032 VE3BSB FN14 0034 K1TEO FN31 from FN22dn: 0136 K1WHS FN43 0137 KD1EU FN31 0139 N2LID FN12 0140 WN8R EN91 0141 WZ1V FN31 0142 W9KXI FN12 0145 K1IIG FN31 0148 K3SZY FN10 0152 W2RJO FN23 0154 K8MR EN91 0157 W2KV FN20 0201 AK3E FM19 0203 K1TR FN42 0214 WA3HDQ FM19 0217 KB8O EN81wi 0219 KA2LIM FN12 0227 WA8RJF EN91iq 0228 WB8PFZ EN91 0229 VE3TMG EN82 0230 VE3ZV EN92 0230 K8NXI EN90 0231 N8IEZ EN82mm 0231 K8DIO EN91 0235 W1TDS FN32 0236 WA9KRT EN61 579 miles (931 km) 0238 K8TQK EM89 0250 N2GHR FN30 0254 WA2VNV FN30 0255 AF1T FN41
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