Since we mentioned Reddit, what the heck:
https://www.reddit.com/r/amateurradio/comments/99o3xf/i_am_a_vhf_contest_rover_ama/
Come ask me questions there if you don't want to ask questions here!
73,
Sean WA1TE (/u/MyrddinWyllt)
On Thu, Aug 23, 2018 at 10:41 AM Sean Waite <waisean@gmail.com> wrote:
> We first decided to go roving about a month before the September 2016
> contest. Neither of our QTHs are great for contests, with hills and local
> noise.
>
> K1SIG has now been out for 3 years, and I still don't think we know what
> we're doing. We're apparently doing something right, with division records
> and wins, but every single time out is a sort of barely controlled chaos.
>
> It's the challenge of the thing. We try and find the best routes and
> strategies, try and figure out how to cram all of this equipment into a
> car. There are times we wonder what we are doing to ourselves, but it's
> fun. We could be sitting in a room somewhere digging out contacts, or we
> could take in a ton of scenery. Yeah, that scenery is for some weird reason
> often a Lowe's parking lot, but it's also sometimes a mountain top. Our
> best multi op efforts from home was a quarter of the points of our worst
> rove.
>
> You can be successful as a rover with modest equipment. You don't need a
> kilowatt and a 20' beam up 50', loops and short beams work fine. We've had
> luck with 2W and 2el on the microwaves.
>
> Fixed stations are very appreciative of rovers and will go out of their
> way to work us.
>
> It may have been that your route was sort of a dud, if you're in VA you
> can track North and you'll get into Packrats territory. There are a lot of
> quite capable stations in Southern PA that would love to work you. It's
> boring when you drive for hours with no contacts - we hit that when we went
> through the center of NY state. No one there.
>
> Roving isn't for everyone. I'm pretty sure that in order to mount a
> serious rove you have to be a little nuts. We find it exciting, both in
> trying to make contacts and in trying to keep the bailing wire and twine
> setup going for a few more grids.
>
> I'm happy to answer any questions you have. Our collection of rover sites
> hasn't extended below PA, but I'm sure there are some out there for you.
> What did you feel like you weren't doing right?
>
> I'm a mod on /r/amateurradio, so I'm slightly familiar with it. I should
> post there, yeah. I've been trying to drum up interest in the redditnet irc
> channel and in the young hams discord. The younger crowd is a good target.
> We haven't learned any better.
>
> 73,
> Sean WA1TE
>
>
> On Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 08:53 Detrick Merz <detrick@merzhaus.org> wrote:
>
>> Randy Wing, wrote:
>> > We all need to get others interested in roving and fixed operation!
>>
>> and Sean Waite, WA1TE, wrote:
>> > I've been working on it. I almost had another rover...
>>
>> Here are some thoughts from the new guy on getting others interested: the
>> wife and I did our first rover outing for June VHF this year. We only
>> halfway knew what to expect, and have a ton to learn. In the end, we had
>> fun, but I don't feel like we did it right, and don't entirely know why
>> we'd want to do it again. Not that we don't, but I can't come up with any
>> reason why. So there's perhaps one thing to do to get others interested:
>> convince me that I should do rover (again).
>>
>> And here's the other part: how I even got started to begin with. I
>> learned it was even a thing through Reddit after reading a post by KA5D. If
>> you're not familiar, there's an Amateur Radio subreddit (
>> https://reddit.com/r/amateurradio) that discusses any and all things ham
>> related. Reddit has a generally younger crowd, and is probably a very good
>> place to go trying to get others interested.
>>
>> -detrick
>> K4IZ
>>
>>
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