Captive: "held under control of another but having the appearance of
independence; especially : owned or controlled by another concern and operated
for
its needs rather than for an open market <a captive mine>." Or "being such
involuntarily because of a situation that makes free choice or departure
difficult <the
airline passengers were a captive audience>"
So called "captive" rovers do what they do because they want to. There
is
no control or coercion. They may have some loaned equipment, but invariably
they
voluntarily supply their own time and their own vehicle. Therefore the use of
the
word "captive" is pejorative and inappropriate.
From now on, I am going to use the term "free rover" -- as in free to
work
whomever they want. I understand that the "free rover" term includes the
circling
strategy; something needs to be altered in the rules to address this. But that
has
nothing to do with free rovers who work only a couple of other fixed stations.
> > This proposal does not clearly define captive rover.
>
> On the contrary:
>
> "2.X. Captive Rover: One or two operators of a rover station affiliated
> with one or more multi-operator stations.
Let us say I am a free rover -- I examine the rules, determine that I
am not
going to win, but I definitely do not want to fill out all that paperwork. I
classify
myself an independent rover. The multi I work mostly goes along and does not
report me to the league. What then? How does the league determine that I
claimed
the wrong category.
Let us put this in HF terms: I enter CQWW with my IC706 and a dipole. I
am never going to win anything. Am I obligated by the rules to work everyone I
possibly can? In order to play, must I spend all weekend with the crummy radio,
or I
am I allowed to have a bit of a life outside amateur radio? Most of the
participants in
HF contests are low-end folks who drop in for some fun, and do not take it that
seriously. The big guns would have far fewer people to work without the little
guys.
Free rovers are a good fraction of the little guys in VHF contesting.
The rules already strongly reward making contacts with as many other
stations as possible -- it is grids times QSO points, after all. Why does
anyone care
if someone wants to be low-key.
The gripe, I guess, is that some multis have been very successful
earning
high scores by cultivating a following of free rover stations. Since the
purpose of the
contest is to get people involved with VHF+ and using the bands, this is a good
thing.
> The circling rovers, would now be in a different category (Rover Team)
Again, same problem. The circlers are all going to file independent,
with
nothing to stop them.
> That not every single entrant in a competition is there to win
> shouldn't be used as an excuse to diminish or harm the sporting
> aspects of the competition.
No one, so far as I have seen, has come up with a credible argument as
to
why free rovers "harm" the contest. "I called him, but he didn't come back to
me," is
not much of a gripe when one station is running perhaps 20dB more power (and
better NF) than the other.
Best regards - Dave KD3NC
_______________________________________________
VHFcontesting mailing list
VHFcontesting@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/vhfcontesting
|