Hi
I have two things in regards to the 222 Sprint. #1 is that it is
possible to run EME as the Moon is sorta in a fair spot. The Moon is low
in the sky with big negative declination. Cosmic noise is rather high
so there is some degradation, but I can work people anyway on 222. At
2300 UT at the start of the Sprint, the Moon is at 19 degrees EL and
173degr azimuth here. At 0300 UT when the Sprint ends, the Moon is quite
low at 5 degrees and 224 degrees azimuth. I would think a contact or
two might be possible as the activity drops near the end of the evening.
Usually things are really slow by 0200 UT. I will be watching HB9Q
during the Sprint for possible skeds. Hopefully you can see the Moon
then. If not, you have 24 hours to do some chainsaw work to open up your
horizon. heh heh.
The 2nd thing is how to best deal with both analog and digital Qs. My
logging program will not handle the analog/digi dupe problem, so I think
I will use two logs, one for each mode, in hopes that I can keep track
of the dupes. the bigger problem is how to corral the operators on both
modes. i would think that allotting a 30 minute time period might make
sense. have alternating 30 minute segments for each type of contact.
Does that make some sense? I would start the Sprint on cw and SSB at
2300 UT, but then only go to FT8 at 2330 to 0000 UT. I see much wrong
with this as you will run out of stations to work and then what do you
do? I would not want to stay on FT8 if there were no more callers. I
would do something else. Still, it is a good way to insure that you will
find SSB/CW ops and then FT8 ops at those times. It could be a benefit
to cut down on chasing individual stations and clogging up the chat
pages. I figure that I will try it with the understanding that the time
is not carved in stone, but rather a suggestion to get ops together on
the different modes. Hitting an exact time for a sked is difficult
during a sprint or any VHF contest now as you might be running with
someone else and have not finished or maybe have not even heard them
yet. Lots of unknowns. That is why you want a reasonably long period to
look for stations. They might be a few minutes late!
Anyway, I am hoping to be on for the 222 MHz Sprint from FN43MJ and will
be active for the entire sprint time. Trying a EME sked or two in the
last hour would be fun.
73
Dave K1WHS
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