[WWYC] sprint notes

[George Fremin III]

On Mon, Apr 19, 2004 at 03:32:39PM +0200, zoltan.pitman at vodafone.com wrote:

> 
> I considered it a learning experience and used alt-n frequently. I started
> the contest with some ideas learned from the writeups and how-to's like that
> of N6TR and W4AN. Too bad I couldn't find back Bill's old Sprint recordings
> - they would have been great for warm-up. 

W4AN sprint recordings.... the WAV files are the orginal files but I think 
the MP3 versions are just as good or at least good enough sound wise.

http://www.kkn.net/~k5tr/audio/w4an/

Also for other practice/warm up you might find this useful:

http://www.kkn.net/~k5tr/audio/sprint_practice/


> I ended up realizing that most of
> the ideas did not work and I have more questions than before. ok, enough of

I would be intrested in knowing what did not work and why.

And is this becasue the EU sprint is diffrent than the NA one in 
some way?

> 
> I programmed F2 as <call> # zoli on/ha1ag and F3 as <call> on/ha1ag # zoli.
> Used F2 when answered cq's and F3 when got called on CQ. The idea was from
> Bill Fisher suggesting that the guy coming to the freq will hear my call and
> will know that I will be the one to be called.  It did not work here either!
> Most stations simply got confused when got the nr where they expected to
> hear my call. I heard only G4BUE to do the same. Noticeably top sprinters
> like DL6RAI used even the DE between the calls. I never heard anyone asking
> Ben for a fill. hmmm.

The convetion in the NA sprint is to do the QSOs such that you can 
always tell who will be getting the frequency next. 

You can read more about that here:

http://n6tr.jzap.com/sprint.html
or
http://www.contesting.com/articles/198


> I thought that sprint will be a contest with speedy CW and set my speeds

It is a speedy contest in NA but the guys that tend to do well in the
contest generally adapt to the person they working and the band
conditions.

> Digging out LP stations from the noise especially the QRS-types was made
> difficult by stations landing on the freq starting CQ. (I did it at least
> twice accidentally , sry Ulf!). Sending by paddle was helpful then but still
> those QSOs took looong time. Sometimes I wished they did not even called
> me... :(

Sometimes you have to know when to ignore a caller.

> This time I did 1 radio but I see room for SO2R. I think the Sprint is not
> really for the ptt-controlled audio switch but more for the constant audio
> splitup. I'm very curious to know how SO2Rers do their magic in Sprint. 

I would agree - I know that W4AN almost never switched this audio preferring to 
just listen to both streams all the time.  I also do not switch my audio except
for the weak ones or noise etc.  That way you always can follow what is happening
on the other raidio.

-- 
George Fremin III - K5TR
geoiii at kkn.net
http://www.kkn.net/~k5tr