[SCCC] FW: February Sprint - 5 February - Starts at 2300 UTC

[Dennis Younker NE6I]

FYI

-----Original Message-----
From: cwsprintmgr=ncjweb.com at mgm.ncjweb.com <cwsprintmgr=ncjweb.com at mgm.ncjweb.com> On Behalf Of cwsprintmgr at ncjweb.com
Sent: Wednesday, January 26, 2022 11:56 AM
To: NE6I at cox.net
Subject: February Sprint - 5 February - Starts at 2300 UTC

EARLY START TIME - CW and RTTY North American Sprints in February and March begin at 2300 UTC! 

This email is going out to everyone who submitted a log in the August North American CW QSO Party - thank you for participating!  We hope to see your call in the CW Sprint logs, too.

This is a reminder that this February's CW Sprint is the second year we are starting one hour before the traditional 0000 UTC starting gun. The idea is to give more time to 20 meter activity.  February 2021 was successful in making 20 meters more productive but conditions were somewhat disturbed at the beginning of the contest, so we decided "mo ichi do" (one more time) to see if it is worth making the change permanent. No change in starting time has been proposed for the fall Sprints.  For an article covering the effects of the time change in February, check out ncjweb.com/sprint-scores/February-2021-Time-Change-Effects.pdf.

Wow - lots of logs - 1263 in the NAQP CW database so we are back to the high levels of participation seen last February.  As reported on 3830scores.com, the two top SOLP totals by N2IC and N9RV are both over 2000 QSOs...just wow!  Both smashed the old record set by N2IC in 2019.  Huge numbers from the Multiops, too, with three out of the top five scores being outside the continental US (ZF5T, WP3C, and ZF1A) and another all-time record for the category set by ND7K.  If you haven't checked the records, they're easy to access at www.ncjweb.com/naqp-records/index.php.

Conditions for the NAQP CW were "interesting" with a good week of propagation before the contest (of course) but some solar hiccups to disturb conditions on Saturday.  10 meters was pretty much a no-show and so was 15 away from both coasts.  Not a problem for the Sprints which only do 20, 40, and 80!  The NOAA 27-day outlook at swpc.noaa.gov suggests a SFI of 105-108 and modest values on CW Sprint Day (Feb 5th) for Ap and Kp of 10 and 3, respectively.  That bodes well for a good 20 meter opening and decent conditions on the low bands.  This will be a good warm up for the ARRL DX CW contest on February 19th and 20th, as well.

A couple of notes for Sprinters about operating practices...
1) Please acknowledge each contact with more than a "dit" - often lost in the scrum, that dit might get snipped by your amplifier, the other station's turnaround delay, or by noise.  The Management recommends "R" or "X" (short for the already shortened TU).
2) There is that pesky move one whole kHz between QSOs rule. (and 5 kHz to call CQ)  In the heat of battle, that's easy to forget, so practice turning the Big Knob (or whatever) to move all the way.

February and March Sprints:
CW: 2300 until 0300 UTC, February 5-6, 2022
RTTY: 2300 until 0300 UTC, March 12-13, 2022

Hope to hear you on the bands – CQ NA!
The NCJ Sprint Team and the Boring Amateur Radio Club

The Usual Reminders

No matter what month of the contest, don't overlook the quick log submission deadline - it's still 7 days after the contest!  You can be sure your log was uploaded by checking the Logs Received web page at ncjweb.com/cwsprintlogs.

After the deadline, the NCJ team takes pride in getting the results out quickly. About two weeks after the contest, we'll publish a table of Preliminary Results with the category winners and everyone's final score.  Within 30 days, we'll publish the full results, including the Top Ten and other tables, some graphical analysis, photos, and comments from the participants.  The full results will be published on the NCJ Sprint website at ncjweb.com/north-american-sprint. In the following edition of NCJ magazine, an excerpt of those results will be published so you get three for the price of one.

Veterans and rookies alike may find the weekly Sprint 30-minute practice sessions sponsored by the NCCC to be useful: www.ncccsprint.com/rules.html. The Wednesday CWops one-hour contests have also turned into great ways to polish your code copying and maybe practice some SO2R (single-op, two-radio) operating. By participating in these events, you can minimize those "first-hour stumbles" by being ready to go at the starting bell.

For those of you who are Sprint veterans, please encourage your club members to give it a try. Don't forget about the five-person teams which are fun for new contesters and contest club members, too!  If you are new to sprinting, why not read Jim George, N3BB's article posted on the NCJ NA Sprint website at ncjweb.com/sprint-scores/CW-Sprinting-N3BB.pdf.