Here is my understanding of the rules: When the rules say that rovers may use APRS they mean that they can transmit an APRS signal giving their location and call. With the exception of the unlimited
"The article mentions that the Online results are available at www.arrl.org/contests/results . I am not able to find the results there. Maybe they won't have it available until after the first of Mar
I rove in the VHF contests. To me, it is clear that spotting occurs in VHF contests, at least on 6M and is useful. It is easy to see when you have been in a grid for a while, Es is in and the rate ha
All of ARRL sponsored UHF/VHF contests have the same format, and with a few tweaks, the same rules, scoring, and categories. There is no obvious reason to me for these all to be the same, except I as
Rover activity in the September contest was very healthy, having grown to 82 this year from a Hurricane Ike induced low of 52 in 2008. All of this growth was in the Limited Rover Category. This seems
With 73 entrants, rover activity was high during the January 2010 contest. Both Classic Rover entries and Limited Rover entries grew from 2008. The Unlimited Rover Class continues to languish, with j
Gene - Thanks for the kind comments on the data. I have included some more in this post, incorporating your % of max participation. Looking at The January contest is interesting in that it was the fi
Gene - Thanks for the comments again. I think most of your comments are spot on. I always thought that a 6M only contest in one of the weekends preceding or following the tne June VHF contest would b
Hey Eric - Nice to hear from you on this topic. I was not advocating that everybody operate with all homebrew equipment. Nothing wrong with commercial antennas, in fact I have a Cushcraft 13B2 that I
Jim - I agree with you that General Rule 1.3 stifles a lot of activity. In addition to precluding effective mentoring of newcomers, it also prevents rovers from submitting a fixed or QRP portable ent
In addition to re-instituting single band categories here are a couple of other suggestions to increase activity. In the 50s, when the VHF club competition started, in addition to the gavel awarded t
This isn't a rationale for the one entry rule, but it is a history, and perhaps a bit of explanation. It was not quite how I remember it. The rule prohibiting more than one entry per individual appea
Chris, sorry to be late in getting back to you on this. You make some good comments: This has been talked about, and Ev, W2EV has even developed some software to do what he calls a contest within a c
There are several multiband VHF designs out there. WA5VJB has a two band one that he suggests for LEO satellite use, but you could just as easily use the designs for the low end of the band: < http:/
All - In the announcement of the winners of the 2nd ARRL HOmebrew Challenge: < http://www.arrl.org/news/features/2010/03/08/11381/?nc=1 > W1ZR, < w1zr@arrl.org >, is soliciting input on an appropriat
Tom - It sounds like you are on the right path. Your gain numbers are similar to what DK7ZB gets on his designs; you may want to look at those designs if you have not already. He has a 4 element 2M b
Dan - While I appreciate the simplicity of the Quad antenna and even referred to N6NB's manifestation of a 144/222/432 in my post, I don't think that simply stacking the antennas concentrically will
Les - The low noise advantage quoted for these antennas is due to the low sidelobes in the patttern. They will not do anything to reduce the noise seen by the main lobe of the antenna. I am not sure
It is good to promote contesting, better VHF contesting, and best of all roving. Kudos to you for being a contesting evangelist. On VHF I think a lot of guys are afraid to get on because they don't h
"Should this say "Veteran VHF contester and QST's The World Above 50 MHz column editor Gene Zimmerman W3ZZ shares the secrets of successful VHF Contesting FROM THE EAST COAST" ???' "<grin>" Seriously