[VHFcontesting] 6m "Fall" Sprint: Different in IL/WI

[John_JK Kalenowsky_K9JK]

Pete, N6ZE wrote:

> No 6m Sprinting in SoCal: not even a Crawl:
> 
> 2Q 1G on 6m.

And Bruce, KI7JA replied:

> Not much here in CN85 either, but arenb these sprints scored on distance?
> Isnbt that why we need to give our 6 digit grids, or am I wrong?  Everyone
> up here was only giving 4 digit grids.

I guess I shouldn't complain about making 'only' 48 QSOs from my rover (the CoROVERolla), then. Sorry to hear that activity was so dismal for Pete in SoCal and for Bruce in Oregon.

While it does not appear that we had any sporadic-E here in the Chicago area, several of us (me included) were able to complete QSOs with VE3CRU/R from FN04na, a path of approx. 750 km. Local consensus is that the propagation was meteor scatter but it must have been a very extended burn or possibly multiple almost simultaneous burns since it seemed to me that Bill's signal was in there and quite solidly copiable for several minutes as opposed to the typical short (but repeated) path enhancements more commonly occurring in meteor showers. I also experienced what I believe were a couple of somewhat enhanced Tropo contacts with 5 contact paths on the order of 300 km and another at about 230 km. If anyone is interested in an extended report, I posted to the Badger Contesters e-mail reflector, direct link: http://mailman.qth.net/pipermail/badgercontesters/2013q3/004601.html.

To Bruce's question...the "Fall" Sprints are sponsored by the Southeast VHF Society and operate differently from the "Spring" Sprints, which are sponsored by the Central States VHF Society, where I WAS the 'host'/chairperson/primary worker bee (I have stepped down and the chair has been passed to another member of the CSVHFS). The "Fall" Sprints use distance scoring ONLY for the Microwave event, while the "Spring" Sprints were using it for ALL 5 of the events, in part as an attempt to get VHFers aware of Grid6s and comfortable with exchanging them.

How was the activity/propagation in other parts of the country?

73, JK, K9JK/R