You are exactly right, Tree.
But - I don't believe the issue is GLOBAL. Nor is it as rampant as some
would wish to paint it.
I think You, George and I all are in TOTAL agreement that JERKS that work
only ONE station aren't playing fair. That's a VERY small segment of the
active rovers in any contest. And JERKS are present no MATTER what part of
the spectrum you occupy. We can ALL agree to that, I hope.
Knowing this happens, it doesn't diminish my respect for the efforts put
forth to achieve these victories.
More simply, I think ANYONE who goes out to play VHF+ radio rover should be
given much more respect. They take their stuff on the road, whilst we suffer
either in homes or fixed positions. They deal with the smokies, weather
(often it sucks), wear-and-tear on their vehicles, gas, food on the
road...stuff that sitting in my shack I don't even NEED to know about. All I
know, is if I call CQ and a /R calls - I'm very happy to hear them.
Whether they work only ME or others, I don't care in the heat of battle. If
it turns out they were captive to me (for some ungodly reason), I still
worked the QSOs. I still had to perform my radio magic to make the contact.
So did they. So long as a legitimate exchange occurs, I suppose its their
perogative to determine who to work and who not to work.
They should be allowed to play in the community sandbox. If they snub enough
people, they just will be sitting alone in the end, wondering why NOBODY
cares about them. And the hope is, enough shame and they either retire or
stop doing it. That, my friends, is the best we can hope for.
That's my final $.02...sure you are all thankful of that!
Mark, K2AXX
ABCD9EFGHI(J)P
FN12cs,
SOHP January VHF SS (top-10 since 1999)
M/M OP at W2FU (144MHz captain)
-----Original Message-----
From: Tree [mailto:tree@kkn.net]
Sent: Wednesday, July 30, 2003 12:42 PM
To: vhfcontesting@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [VHFcontesting] captive rovers = Red Herring
On Wed, Jul 30, 2003 at 07:06:50AM -0400, Ev Tupis (W2EV) wrote:
> Unfortunately, George's example was one of mathmatics, not an example of
what
> has actually happened. While an interesting read, it simply serves as a
"heads
> up" of potential impact not proof of anything (including if that impact is
a bad
> thing, necessarily).
I think the take away from George's analysis is to fully understand what the
impact of rovers is - and thus understand why major operations are
interested
in enabling them. I certainly learned something from it.
> > They do exist. I have seen several examples of it poking around
> > in the June VHF logs. I am one of the log checkers for the ARRL
> > and have access to the logs. This is not a red herring!!
>
> I would submit that the data that you are reviewing cannot be interpreted
in the
> way that you suggest for one principal reason: you have used a term that
is
> undefined -- "captive rovering" -- and are using it in conjunction with it
being
> a violation of ARRL General Rule for Contests Above 50 MHz 2.3.5. Until
> everyone knows how that term is defined, it is impossible to DQ anyone for
being
> one.
Currently, my definition of a "captive rover" is this:
A rover who only appears on one log and has made more than a few QSOs (like
more than 20).
I think that is a hard definition to argue with. If I said: "A rover who
has
80 percent of his QSOs with one station" - we would have a big debate about
the right number. I have chosen 100 percent to avoid that discussion.
There
seem to be enough of them that meet that criteria, that I didn't need to
change it.
> Maybe the thread could morph into a discussion of how "Captive Rover" is
> defined?
I think the real question is, are we okay people winning contests who have
rovers who only work them?
In response to the people quoting rules and trying to decide if this should
be allowed or not. As Warren, K2BM pointed out, I am NOT asking for rule
changes here. I am an experienced HF contester who is a fish out of water
here on the VHF reflector. I am putting my finger in the wind and asking
the question - "is this a problem?". I initially put out a hypothetical
question to generate some discussion. I took some personal risk and threw
out a piece of data to make it clear that the data might not be so
hypothetical when it became clear that many people didn't believe this
was going on. I am doing all of this because I believe this is something
we should all be aware of, and should each decide if this is something
we are comfortable with or not. I believe that if we come to the
consensus that this is a problem, peer pressure will do more to resolve
the situation than any action the ARRL or CQ could take.
I am not anti-rover. Anything but, and I have nothing against big
multi-multis. However, I do not think it is the best thing for the
sport of VHF contesting to have rovers out there who only try to work
one station.
73 Tree N6TR
tree@kkn.net
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