I think Ron brought some good points that I would like to address.
I am speaking only for myself and not my rover partner.
> Lack of recognition for efforts (no matter how small).
Last September was my second time out as a rover. The first trip was a last
minute effort and while it was enjoyable, I did not make a lot of Q's. We
were going to rove in the June 2003 contest but due to a death in my family
on Thursday before the contest, we had to cancel the rover trip. September
of 2003 was a very different story. First since there were two of us in the
truck, we were able to activate a lot of grids. We were able to operate on
the fly and from some fixed locations. We were set up to operate on 6 meters
to 1.2 GHz. We were in the right places, at the right times and scored
fairly well. Since it was our first time out as a rover team I think we did
very good. However, since we were not one of the top 10 rovers nation wide,
we were not mentioned in QST. Yes, we were listed in the ARRL "MEMBERS ONLY"
web site but nothing in QST. People enjoy seeing their name and call in
print after they spend time, effort and money to set up a contest station.
ARRL - are you listening?
> Correct software incorporating the new rules or computer skills to log and
> send in the score.
Strange but our rover score changed from 62,124 on the Cabrillo v2.0 log
that we submitted to 58,651 as posted on the ARRL web site. No, I am not
going to the name the rover software that we used but it was one of the
main ones. No explanation from the ARRL concerning the score change. I would
have liked to have known so that we could fix our problem or give some
feedback to the logging software author.
> These de-motivators spread across the spectrum into many contest.
Yep, my next VHF contest will more than likely be from a fixed high level
location rather that as a rover. Yes, it was a lot of fun and both of us
enjoyed the trip. However we can join our local club activities at a fixed
high level location and save the driving for someone else.
George
k7wwa
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