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[VHFcontesting] Limited Roving - Worth the Effort?

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Subject: [VHFcontesting] Limited Roving - Worth the Effort?
From: "Shupienis, Joseph" <jshupienis@ccac.edu>
Date: Sun, 6 Jul 2008 01:28:07 -0400
List-post: <vhfcontesting@contesting.com">mailto:vhfcontesting@contesting.com>
WARNING! LONG-WINDED RANTING FOLLOWS! WARNING!

Rovers expend a lot of resources to put "relatively rare" grids on the air for 
everyone to enjoy. The enjoyment we get is to work as many stations as we can 
from those rare-ish grids. It's a bit of a let-down to use up $60 of gas to go 
to a nice mountaintop in a much-wanted grid, only to make a grand total of 11 
Qs, even though I can hear lots of stations working the big boys. Then, after 
working only the big signals, it seems the multitude turn their beams away, 
never to be heard again until I reach the next grid and the cycle of 
frustration begins anew.

Of course I can work the big guns with ease, but it seems that no one else 
besides them bothers to look for weak signals in the "weak signal" part of the 
band. Sometimes it seems that the only signals that get people's attention are 
those directly on the calling frequencies that jump out of the speaker, run up, 
and slap the operator in the face! And after they have worked all 10 of those 
in the first hour or so, it seems a lot of ops turn off their radios for the 
rest of the contest to go watch some ballgame on TV and drink beer. No matter 
which grid I start in, it is always the most productive. So I guess I should 
start at the most wanted grid, huh?

I can call CQ on 144.210 or .180 for hours with nary an answer, and then 
someone 200 miles away stumbles across me and honestly (I hope) informs me that 
I'm S7 or 10 over S9 on his S-meter. Then they profusely thank me for the grid 
multiplier from FN11 or FN01, or wherever I am, and we walk up the bands. Then 
it's back to my "run" frequency for more fruitless CQing (if someone else who's 
S9+30 hasn't jumped on it the second I went to 432 -- and that same someone 
"can't hear" me when I try to work him!)

I don't get it.

If I can easily hear another station who is running the same power level I am, 
why can't they seem hear me? I've had to resort to strictly S&P, and can 
usually work everyone I can hear, and can work them again on the other bands. 
So I know I can be heard. It's just getting kind of frustrating to realize that 
maybe a lot of people don't know I exist, or just don't want to bother looking 
for me. 

But then if they accidentally find me, they profusely thank me for the new 
multipliers I give them and ask where I'm going next.

And then, of course, at the next grids I'll never hear from them again, unless 
it's their half-hour ragchew with one of their buddies. Why is it that they are 
both S9 plus on my receiver, but when they say their fond farewells and 73s and 
88s and get back to contesting, neither one can hear me call them, and then 
turn their beams away and tune off frequency?

I don't get it. 

Then I see rover scores from other rovers who claimed to work the same grids I 
work from. I have yet to hear a single one of them on the air. And their scores 
are usually 50-100 times my pathetic numbers. They must have rates of 100-200 
QPH... somehow...

I don't get it.

I would like to add 222 to my lineup. I've tried to save up for it, but so far 
I've wasted all the money on $4.00/gallon gas to make, what? 1,000 points?

There are many good contesters out there. I have worked every one I can hear, 
and handed out as many multipliers as I can to every station that is willing to 
make the effort to work me. It just seems that lately, more stations are 
"getting away" and must be looking for easier stations to work than my weak 
rover signals (and weak bank account) allow.

Oh wait -- I think I'm starting to get it now... Nobody told them I'm there or 
that they might have to listen carefully to dig out my piddly, weak, little 
signal...

- RANTING COMPLETE -

Thanks for listening, I feel better getting that off my chest.

See you on 6 and 2 in the CQ WW VHF test!

73 de Joe W3BC

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