[VHFcontesting] 2010 Spring Sprints ARE Happening (but NOT until the 12th!)

[Spring Sprints]

Greetings VHF Contesters,

I'll spare the excuses but I've not been as "attentive" and proactive
toward promoting THIS year's Spring Sprint series as I'd like to have
been. Thanks to others who have stepped in and announced and done some
promotion.

One result of my being lax is conflicting/confusing info is the DATES
for 2010. Of 4 places in the April QST, two places had the correct set
of dates and the other two places had a different set...the CORRECT
DATES ARE:

144 MHz - April 12th,
222 MHz - April 20th and
432 MHz - April 28th

And these are the three events held on the evenings in LOCAL time
(meaning local to YOUR time zone), 7pm to 11pm. No conflict THIS year
with the NCAA Men's Basketball Final!

In May, the Microwave/902 MHz & Up Sprint will be on May 1st, 6am to
1pm LOCAL time and don't forget that the 50 MHz is Sprint the ONLY
Sprint that is the SAME hours for everybody...2300Z on May 8th though
0259Z on May 9th. This is Saturday afternoon/evening in Continental
U.S. TIme Zones, that is, 7pm to 11pm for Eastern Daylight Time, 6pm
to 10pm for Central Daylight Time, 5pm to 9pm for Mountain Daylight
Time, and 4pm to 8pm for Mountain STANDARD Time in Arizona and Pacific
Daylight Time.

Here is a link to the Announcement and Rules:
http://groups.google.com/group/springsprints/web/2010-announcement-rules

This "big" change this year is that scoring will be based on distance,
basically 1 point per kilometer of the path length of each QSO and the
use of SIX-character Grid Locators will really "help" this so I hope
everyone will try REALLY hard to learn their own SIX-character AND
exchange and record them in logs (and have figured out how to work
with their logging program accept such info). Properly formatted AND
ELECTRONICALLY SUBMITTED Cabrillo Logs will really help my
log-checking and scoring efforts. Bruce Horn will again be providing
his Web-to-Cabrillo forms and those DO work with SIX-character
exchanges, you enter your own ONCE (unless you are a rover) and on the
line that you create for each QSO when you get to that step.

For Rovers, they can be worked MULTIPLE times and the distance for ONE
QSO will count from each different FOUR-character Grid in which the
Rover is contacted. For example, I often visit EN62ad AND EN62aa in
Sprints as a Rover...since BOTH are EN62, only ONE could count as
distance BUT if I were ALSO in EN61ax, EN51xx and EN52xa, the
distances for EACH of THOSE would count as well.

I have received a few questions via e-mail and have answered them. If
you did NOT get a reply to your question or if there are other
questions...send (or re-send) them to me at this e-mail:
springvhfuhfsprints at gmail.com

73, 'JK' (K9, that is), Spring Sprint host and log-checking human