Yes the one time that I recall roving during a 4 hour sprint the timing was
very tight for me but I have a lengthy drive between viable roving sites and
need at least 15 min to setup when stopping at a new site and a somewhat
shorter time period for tear down.
On the other hand I have worked Rovers during sprints who have been able to
rove thru a 4 grid intersection with a rover vehicle that required little or no
setup at each stop and they did very well.
I like the single band 4 hour sprints. I have found it hard to get new locals
with weak signal gear to participate, but a few times I made some reasonably
successful efforts to get a number of locals with FM gear to participate. My
preference is to work distant stations using weak signal modes so I no longer
go out of my way prior to the sprints to drum up locals using FM, but I make a
modest effort to work locals on FM who happen to show up. These days I make a
post to a local weak signal reflector to remind people about the sprints and
figure those who want to operate will do so.
73
Mark S
VE7AFZ
mark@alignedsolutions.com
604 762 4099
> On Oct 2, 2020, at 7:58 AM, Zack Widup <w9sz.zack@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> If you're a Rover, 4 hours is barely enough time to get going. There's
> transit time between stops and that eats up a lot of time.
>
> 73, Zack W9SZ
>
>> On Fri, Oct 2, 2020 at 9:06 AM Ed Kucharski <k3dne@comcast.net> wrote:
>>
>> I'm gonna have to disagree with Chet. 4 hours seems like the perfect time
>> period for a sprint. In fact, I ran out of time in the 2m sprint trying to
>> work stations at 22:59. I consider a marathon a 48 hour HF contest or the
>> ARRL VHF contests - not a 4 hour sprint. Perhaps, if some think 4 hours is
>> too long, additional sprints can be devised (mini-sprints)? A separate 1 or
>> 2 hour event that would be in addition to the sprints that already exist at
>> a different time of year - similar to the CW Ops Test (CWT) that are of a 1
>> hour duration or Phone Fray a 30 minute contest on HF. IMHO FT8 is so slow
>> I'm not sure 1 hour would be long enough on vhf+.
>> 73,
>> Ed K3DNE
>> EM94
>>
>>>> On 10/02/2020 9:24 AM Chet S < chetsubaccount@snet.net mailto:
>>> chetsubaccount@snet.net > wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> Hi Dave,
>>>
>>> Many contests suffer the tapering off of activity after a while.
>> Monday night football, super-bowls, debates, Sunday afternoon sweepstakes
>> doldrums, family time, etc.
>>> And nowadays we are constantly pressed to add something "new and
>> better" into our lives, and if we take more on, then there is less relax
>> time for our other stuff.
>>>
>>> Maybe I'm old school but still highly enjoy hearing a weak signal,
>> turning the beam to peak it, and trying to work it. Ahhh, that xyz station
>> improvement I made this summer is working...or not...or pick a beam
>> direction and go fishing to see what you can catch. Make your own decisions
>> when and whether to call toward a population density direction or toward
>> missing grids. SSB vs. FT8. To me that is the name of the game. I do not
>> like the idea of pre-arranged contacts or arranging them in real time, that
>> seems more like DXing than Contesting and not very satisfying.
>>>
>>> The sprints are a good fun break from the workday, but are 4 hours a
>> bit much? It's supposed to be a sprint not a marathon, so maybe with
>> shorter hours the station activity would be more consistent throughout.
>>>
>>> 73,
>>> Chet, N8RA
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: VHFcontesting < vhfcontesting-bounces+chetsubaccount=
>> snet.net@contesting.com mailto:vhfcontesting-bounces+chetsubaccount=
>> snet.net@contesting.com > On Behalf Of David Olean
>>> Sent: Thursday, October 1, 2020 5:01 PM
>>> To: (Radio) VHF Contesting < VHFcontesting@contesting.com mailto:
>> VHFcontesting@contesting.com >; 222 MHz ACTIVITY < 222Activity@Groups.io
>> mailto:222Activity@Groups.io >
>>> Subject: [VHFcontesting] An idea for the sprints.
>>>
>>> It isn't much of an idea, more a suggestion, to not abandon the VHF
>> sprints when activity dies down after the initial spurt of activity. I was
>> not a big fan of opening up chat pages for coordination of contacts in VHF
>> contests. My reasoning was that it favored stations that had good internet
>> connectivity and penalized those that did not.
>>>
>>> That being said, we now have the ability to set up schedules for
>> almost impossible contacts simply by coordinating on internet sites
>> dedicated to such things. So why did everyone bail out after an hour or so
>> on the
>>> 222 Sprint? The few diehards left were ones that I had already
>> contacted. It would have been great to try some long haul tropo contacts on
>> CW or even FT4/FT8 with stations that are normally not in range. Trying and
>> failing at a 400+ mile QSO with a 25 watt station or trying a meteor
>> scatter contact is much more agreeable than spending an hour calling CQ and
>> tuning around on a almost empty band with no takers and no results. A few
>> posts for skeds by several of the diehards also went unheeded towards the
>> latter half of the sprint. The last hour, when things die down is the time
>> to experiment and see what your station can do even if it is outside of
>> your comfort zone. The worst that can happen is that the path does not
>> work! Then, there is the problem of which chat page to monitor. Having poor
>> connectivity makes monitoring a number of them impossible for many
>> operators. On a good day, I might be able to cover two chat pages. We
>> should set up a standardization for the sprints so
>>> people are all looking at the same place.
>>>
>>> So next time, think twice about quitting early! Do something
>> exciting instead.
>>>
>>> 73
>>>
>>> Dave K1WHS
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
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