[VHFcontesting] Spotting and the 432 Sprint

[Phil Theis]

There was some really good spotting going on last night in the sprint.  
What I found was it gave good indication of where to point the 
antennas.   Then the chat page on ON4KST allowed me to fine tune who to 
point and tune to.
We have a ways to go with the spotting and the software, but this is a 
great start.   The fundamentals are there.
Here were my comments to 3830:

Lots of fun last night. The Sprint gave us a great platform to 
experiment with spotting and assistance that is now part of all of our 
contests. The spot window was populated most of the night. It gave 
witness to who was on and as to where I should point antennas. The 
ON4KST chat page then allowed fine tuning of direction, frequency and 
time to complete some contacts that otherwise would not be completed. 
(Sprints are different that full contests) Conditions were varied. When 
I attempted my normal contact to EM95 with W4DEX I could hardly hear 
him; but 15 minutes later he was louder than normal. I managed to 
complete with K9MRI at 485 miles yet not with K1DY at 482 miles. There 
was strong variation in signal strength throughout the evening. So lots 
of fun.

73,
Phil K3TUF