I agree with most of what has been said about the subject of this thread...
And will Add:
As an "experiment" one CQ WW VHF contest, I borrowed an APRS tracker and
installed it in the rover... It didn't, as far as I could tell, help me
"get any QSO's" from those who were paying attention to the APRS, whether
they were monitoring "on the air" or over the internet... Keep in mind it
ran the callsign of the donor of the tracker, and that was the only
message it transmitted... so only those who knew I was carrying this
particular tracker
knew what it "really" was doing. In fact, once I got into the "rare-grid"
territory, separated from "civilization" by a healthy pile of mountains,
even the internet didn't relay my position!!!
The interference to the 2 meter station probably killed off a QSO or two....
Fortunately in that contest 6 meters opened up mightily once I worked all
the local LOS activity so had lots to do, despite the finickiness of the
halo I was using!
My only regret in that test was burying the rover vehicle in sand an hour
or so before the end of the contest and missing out on activating another
grid,
this done to find a quiet area where I could properly work a QRP hilltopper
on the other side of the mountain range!
I guess the deal with "limited" roving is to allow someone to throw
something together and give roving a whirl, and still be competitive with
similar stations... However, someone COULD, within the limits of that
class build one heck of an effective station...
Prior to roving, I endured the frustration of QRP portable operations for
years... but, still built the station up to try to get signals "out
there"... even with only 3W on 2 meters and 10W on 6 meters, and FM only
on 440... I still ran the biggest antennas I could reasonably carry with
me, the lowest-loss feedline I could "find"... homebrewed a lightweight,
sturdy crankup tiltover tower to put it all on...
The migration into roving was first done during an ARRL September VHF
test, with ZERO Es, and, 6 hours to end of test, worked everything on the
bands I had from the mountaintop. So, packed the antennas, stowed the
tower, hooked the rigs up to the vertical mag-mounts, and stopped in the
grid squares I had to drive through to get up to the mountain, worked all
the "big guns" who could hear me (and otherwise were bored with listening
to the same noise I was:-) and were glad for the points. I, of course,
was glad because
I could do something productive for the remainder of the 'test...
Needless to say, I have added bands, power, more bands, more power, made the
antennas as big as you could make them and still move them down the road and
"work stuff"... went roving, broke stuff, fixed it, went roving again,
learned a lot....
Then, the grand realization that my previous roving vehicle offered very
little in the way of being able to share the experience without causing
extreme discomfort to the passenger...(Even in a VW Bus, the radio stack,
etc. made things a tight fit, not to mention the strain all that extra
windload was causing the mechanicals of a 40 year old vehicle) occurred to
me when a friend invited me to our local State government surplus vehicle
auction... And, I drove home my current rover vehicle!
I certainly understand the frustration of hearing big signals that can't
hear you... which is one of the reasons I have largely abandoned HF!!!
At least out here on the left coast, most of the bigger stations on VHF
will make every attempt to dig your puny signal out of the noise,
especially if they hear someone else working your "little pistol" station
in a rare one, to the point of actually calling you "in the blind"...
It helps that most of the ops who can afford the "big power" have the
"big aluminum" and the "big coax"
that allow the little signal to make it into their detectors!!!
Next time I should do the rave on Unlimited Roving-- Worth the effort!!!!
Eric
KB7DQH
_______________________________________________
VHFcontesting mailing list
VHFcontesting@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/vhfcontesting
|