I enjoy my home station too much. Took months of research,
scrounging, networking, bugging others to get things to where
they are today. Took a ton of great help too, which I remain
very grateful for. This fixed station is where I need to be
during a contest.
Here in the Great Lakes/Upper Midwest, we have a lot of
roving. And boy am I grateful for the rovers! As I've said
before in these threads, rovers can easily constitute 30-40%
of my total score in a given contest.
From SE Wisconsin, I can usually work at least some rover
from ILL, IA, MN, and Lower MI. An average contest will
have at least 4-5 rovers who can work 100-150 miles with at
least 4-6 bands. Occasionally, everything comes together and
6-8 rovers with well-equipped stations are within range at some
point of the contest.
We have to be very careful about restricting rover-to-rover
Q's. At least we do here in this part of the world. Way too
many good guys are out roving, and roving the right way, for
them to not enjoy multiple Q's with other rovers that they
come across during their journeys. I'm not sure how the
exact rule should be written, but rover-to-rover Q's are
important in the Upper Midwest.
I encourage rovers in multiple ways.
I spend a lot of time reading and distributing email prior to
contests. I inform several clubs across my general territory
about rover and fixed station activity that they might not have
known about. I'm always trying to get clubs and ops to think
about reaching out farther and farther.
I contest long and hard because I enjoy the hell out of it. If
you're roving and tired, and have nobody new to work, I am
happy to ragchew a while to keep you going. I'm even happier
when the ragchewing brings out a station that otherwise might
not have known there was a rover still on frequency. I was most
happy when an EN44 rover stayed up all night in this summer's
UHF contest and got me 2 or 3 new grids between 2:30 and
4am. It passed time very pleasantly until dawn broke.
I spend a lot of time reading and distributing email prior to
contests. I inform multiple clubs across my region about rover
and fixed station activity that they might not have known about.
I'm always trying to get clubs and ops to think about reaching
out farther and farther.
I keep a 2nd beam and rig for 144 turned toward a rover I
know is "out there somewhere". When I hear them come back
to their pre-announced frequency, I'm ready to hit them in their
new grid, and get their 4, 5, 6 bands in the log again. And then
I make sure I say over and over that "so-and-so is in their new
grid EN40, 41, etc" so that locals know it's time to get some
new mults. There's a lot of that sort of cooperation around
here. I suspect and hope that there's a lot of that cooperation
everywhere among friendly and ethical VHF contesters.
Lately, I've decided to personally do more to improve general
activity on VHF, and hopefully, some of this will translate into
new contesters. I'm holding SSB nets on Wed. night, and now
an FM simplex net on Thursdays. The FM idea is to meet the
repeater guys in the middle. I find these guys who have an
interest in simplex via email and word-of-mouth. I'll be curious
to see if they start contesting some in 2009.
I'll be happy to expand on this whole recruitment idea as
time goes along. For now, just know that in the Upper
Midwest area, it has gotten more active on 144 SSB and
146 FM simplex since last summer. Best way to contact me
for more details is via email.
73,
Todd KC9BQA EN63ao 40 N of Milwaukee
50 thru 2304
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