> And furthermore if I was a rover operating within the
> original spirit and goal in mind I would be very upset
> with the idea that I could *never* be competitive as
> rover unless I joined a pack myself. Those rovers who
> do seek to provide rare grids to as many fixed ops as
> possible *do* get discouraged by this and leave
> roving. So what then was actually achieved in the end
> by grid circling roving? The only thing that I can see
> is a huge score for the pack participants, everybody
> else loses, not just in terms of points but meaningful
> participation instead.
Duane,
Well speaking as someone who does operate as a rover in the contests with
my father K3LFO/R. I really look at it this way. If the Grid Circlers
want to go out and do their thing then more power to them. They really
dont need a contest to do what they are doing. I dont guage my score to
them and when i look at the final rankings in the contest I really dont
even considering them as valid scores. I really am only out there to
compete with myself. The idea for us is to expand and improve. Everytime
we go out and operate as rover we learn something new. Or something
occurs that we have to overcome or workaround. This is where the fun
comes in is designing a building an array of antennas that cover 5-6
bands. I'm still amazed the antennas stay up there on top of the car
sometimes. But we go out and we have fun and we make tons of contacts.
I'll be honest with you I think in a whole contest we may work 3 or 4
rovers total. Usually one of them is Bill W3IY/R cause he makes the most
noise out of all of us rovers. So if at the end of the contest, we have
improved our score since the last contest then we really have won. We
know we have more things to learn, more equiptment to acquire/build to get
up to the level of some of the top rovers but we are having fun ;-). See
http://www.k3lfo.org.
I've thought long and hard on this issue and my dad and I have talked at
great lengths trying to come up with a solution or alternation of the
rules that would eliminate the interest in grid circling but unfortunately
everyone of them has side effects that drastically change the outcome and
nature of the contest when the thoughts are brought to a conclusion. This
unfortunately is not a simple problem to solve. But since it doesn't
impact my goals when involved in these contests, I do not get too bothered
by the ongoing GC activity.
>
>> But, maybe these "non-rover" stations may need to
>> improve
>> their stations to the point where they can hear a
>> flea
>> sneeze 500 miles away? Except nearby "noise
>> sources" make this impractical???
>
> But many of these fixed stations *can* hear that flea
> 500 miles away, and they do often hear the grid
> circling rovers out there. But those GC rovers either
> don't hear them, or simply ignore all fixed stations
> that are not stronger than S9. They are too busy
> keeping to the pack schedule to exclusion of almost
> everybody else.
Us Rovers can sometimes hear that Flea out there. But that is because in
our case we are driving around with big ears on ;-)
>
>> Some of us out on the NorthLeft Coast have been
>> figgering
>> out ways to maximize the gain/power RX sensetivity
>> of a
>> "practical" rover station, to the point of straining
>> automotive and rotator technology to the breaking
>> point and beyond.
> ...
>
> And based on this description I doubt if this roving
> station is being used to exclusively work *only* other
> rovers in a pack over just few miles. It *is* the type
> of roving effort that us fixed station like to see and
> work.
>
> Do we as fixed stations have a problem with rovers
> working other rovers in and of itself? Of course not,
> it only becomes a problem when rovers working rovers
> turns into its own narrowly focused activity that has
> been pre-orchestrated for the sole purpose of working
> other pack member rovers.
>
> Duane
> N9DG
>
>
>
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