[VHFcontesting] 222 Sprint

[Bill Seabreeze]

Got our last nite with the rover a little for the 222 sprint.  As expected,
activity was pretty good for the 1st hour...then trickled to a complete
hault around 2230 local.  It was slow, but I worked many unexpected
grids to the SW, W, NW, & NE.  We are still shut-out of the usual rover
site near home in FM19ha, but we asked and got permission for another
site along the Dulles Greenway.  This site has a zero degree take-off angle
from about 350 to 185 to the east side.  Trees to the west looked bad at
first, but turned out to still provide less than 10deg take-off in most
westerly
directions.

We managed 35/21 which is a little below past activity, as I recall.
Calling
and listening a lot in the rare directions on CW paid off.  We found K4QI
(FM06) to the south, followed by W4DEX (EM95), W4WA (EM84) to
the SW, K8TQK (EM89), W8PAT (EN81) to the W & NW, and then
K8ZES(FN02), KC2EBH(FN03), K2AXX (FN12), towards the N.
We had some trouble attracting K1WHS, but switching to CW made the
grade.  Dave was Q5 on SSB but wasn't hearing my measly 220W SSB
at the time.  An unexpected treat was hearing Stan, WA1ECF (FN41)
off the side of the beam from Cape Cod. Vy nice sigs!

There didn't seem to be any particular enhancement, but 222 always amazes
me in that I always seem to work fairly rare grids that I miss in the big
contests.
222 propagation just rocks, and seems to outperform 2m much of the time.  I
found it to be much more effective to listen, listen, and then listen some
more,
to find the grids...calling CQ just doesn't cut it most of the time, and
causes
lots of unnecesary QRM.  Of course u gotta do it some, but listening was
more
effective for me last nite.  Many times, we would hear someone working the
stations we wanted, and then would just point in their direction and
wait/listen,
and call an occasional QRZ.

It was kinda fun getting a chance to concentrate on one band for an evening.
To all those who hate it when DX jumps to another band...the sprints are
your contest!  No excuses...just swings those beams, tune around, and work
stations.

Even though the action was slow, finding and working some 222 DX was
lots of fun.  Tnx to all who got on the air...& tnx to the SEVHS for keeping
the sprint-flame alive!  Hpe CU on 432 next Wednesday evening.

73,
Bill W3IY FM19ha