[NLRS] W9FZ/R and KA9VVQ/R report from the 2M Spring Sprint

[Bruce Richardson]

It was a beautiful spring evening. 

We got out the door late from Woodbury and ended up being at least 30 minutes late to our first spot in EN34 SE of Rochester, MN.

I would say activity was average to slightly above average for a sprint.  Several callsigns were not worked that I hoped would be on the air but that's ok.  We knew just about all the callsigns we worked and we appreciate all of the contacts.  Most folks found us up on 144.240.  That really helped us and I hope it helped the rest of you as well.

Rover scoring in a sprint is like the original Rover scoring for ARRL contests (and I like that).  It means it is important to work all the grids you can from each grid activated.  So working EN24, EN34, EN35, and EN44 (for instance) from every grid is important.  We worked EN32, EN13, EN62, and EN22 only once or twice during the evening.  I'm glad they were there but I wish we had found them again 😊.  Nice to work Arliss W7XU and Ray WB0HHM out in EN13.  Ed W0OHU did a great job finding us in 4 grids using an indoor squalo and something like 5 watts.  We worked LaCrosse, Madison, Stevens Point, and Milwaukee repeatedly--which is nice.

Most of the callsigns we know as friends.  Two new callsigns were W9GM in the LaCrosse area and KG0SJ in EN22.  I'm glad they were on and we hope to work them many more times in the future.

We knocked off about 10:35p and got back to Woodbury about 00:45 in the morning.  We were beat!

We won't be on for the 222 as we are catching a concert by guitarist Bill Frizzell that night in Hopkins.  We hope to be on for the 432 sprint from either EN43 at the cabin or as a rover at the grid corner.

We achieved our goal and got a nice dose of RF.  Many thanks to all of you who worked us.  Fun to play radio.

73
Bruce Richardson W9FZ/R
Janice Hoettels KA9VVQ/R