[CQ-Contest] CW Sprint - This Saturday Evening

[Ward Silver]

The September edition of the North American CW Sprint (ncjweb.com) is this
weekend: 80/40/20 meters from 0000-0400 UTC Sep 11th, which is Saturday
night here in North America.  Most activity is between 20-55 kHz above the
band edge.  Most stations start on 20 meters and work their way down but
there will be activity on all three bands during the middle part of the
contest and on two bands all the time.

The exchange is both calls, serial number, name, and
state/province/country.  If you are outside of North America - and we have
had some very good non-NA scores recently - your QSOs are welcome and count
for QSO points, just send DX as your QTH.  The contest loggers and log
checkers know what to do.

If you notice stations sending calls in strange orders, here's what's going
on:  Because of the QSY rule (see the rules on ncjweb.com), one station in
a QSO has to leave the frequency afterwards.  That station sends both calls
first:
   W1AW N0AX 123 Ward MO - N0AX will then leave the frequency
The station staying on frequency sends their call at the end:
   N0AX 234 Hiram CT W1AW - W1AW will be staying on frequency
So you know you can call and work W1AW next.

There is additional information about Sprint operating given on the
ncjweb.com Sprint page.  This is especially helpful for newcomers and even
includes some sample QSOs.

September is often a good time to have all three bands with good
propagation.  The past few days, conditions haven't been very good for HF
but the A and K indices are calming down, solar flux is above 100, and that
makes it fun all across the continent, up north for KL7 and VE, into the
Caribbean and Central America, and even out west in Hawaii.  Multipliers
are counted once (not once per band) so each one is extra special!

Hope to see our CW operators jumping on Saturday night - CQ NA!

73, Ward N0AX
Manager, CW Sprint