The sprint activity was off to a good start, but I wondered how long it would last. I made four contacts in the first ten minutes, then Tom arrived on site and provided Doppler radar via smartphone. We took a few moments to look at the radar loop, and the cells were moving basically northeast as expected. There were none headed this way--more good luck. It was great to take a leisurely approach to the sprint by chatting with Tom, then doing some operating, then chatting some more.

With the antenna pointed west, I was just able to hear VA3ELE/R who was in FN02. At that moment he mentioned that he was on his way toward FN03 so I continued to call CQ on the same bearing, and six minutes later he went into my log from his new grid. A tip of the hat to him for keeping me on frequency so that I could pick up one more QSO. He also ended up being the only station I heard in FN03. Plus, during that time I also worked VE3ZV EN92 (5x7 here) who was my best DX to the west (230 miles / 371 km). Skies had cleared and there was no rain or lightning static in the middle of the sprint--more good luck.

Late in the 3rd hour we looked at the radar loop one more time before Tom had to leave. We saw a cell to the northwest near Syracuse, NY which would continue moving northeast and miss us. In keeping with the leisurely theme, I took a break from the sprinting and chatted with Ken KA2LIM for quite a while in the final hour, then went outside to check on the lightning flashes which had now moved to my north. There was a long stretch of clear skies between me and the storm cell, so I went back inside the van and operated the final half hour. I picked up one new grid and then heard KD2AVU in NYC who I haven't heard in a long time. He was calling VE2DS which is a long haul, so I didn't want to interrupt, but FN30 would have been another new grid for me. Best DX to the northeast was Maine station K1WHS FN43 (247.5 mi / 398.3 km). Best to the south were the stations in FN20, although I did hear a few syllables out of the folks in FM19 and FM29. Signals were not propagating well to my south; they were strong for two seconds, then gone for a half hour. No contacts to the north, but overall, activity levels seemed higher than usual. In fact, this turned out to be my best spring 222 sprint ever, not a drop of rain fell on me the whole time, and the lightning stayed away.