[VHFcontesting] Re: Rover Circling Solution & ARRL VHF+ contest proposals

[Frank Alwine]

>I don't agree and I would bet that the majority of the 'active' rovers 
>would disagree also. Going out and doing a tandem rover and grid circling 
>is 'fun once'. It's not fun every contest. It's tedious. There are a lot of 
>different ways to do a rover operation and in my experience most of the 
>rovers try something different every time they go out.
>
>What do the rovers think ?

I'm fairly new to roving and definately in the "little pistol" catagory,
but have played in the VHF contests since the early 90's.  Here's
my take on the proposed rule changes:

1)  Making rover QSO's count less than other stations is a *bad* idea.
     QSO points should be the same for everyone... just what we
     rovers need, a *disincentive* for a station to work us, unless we're
     in a grid he/she needs.

2)  A return to the "old" rover scoring rules is OK.  I started roving
     after the "new" rules took effect, so I"m OK with them either way.

3)  Discouraging grid circling is good, instituting a change that would
      totally prevent me from revisiting a square is bad.  A 4-8 hour
     wait time (kind of like the "10 minute" band change rule in some HF
     contests) would be an acceptable compromise.   Example - in one
      contest, I couldn't devote the entire weekend to roving, so I started
     in my own grid Saturday night, then went to 2 other grids Sunday
     before returning home late Sunday afternoon.  Back in my home grid
     on Sunday, I was able to work a few stations I didn't hear Saturday
     night.  Excluding revisiting grids would have totally eliminated those 
Q's
     for all parties involved.  I'm sure this kind of scenario happens often 
with
     casual rovers.

4)  Don't exclude rovers from club competition.   So what if rovers can
      have large scores under the "old" rover rules?  The  "megastations"
     have large scores too - will the ARRL exclude them as well?   The rules
     should be inclusive, not exclusive.

5)  The logical contest to limit to 6M-1296 is January, not June.   For most
     of the country, weather limits the microwave possibilities in January 
anyway.

6)  I'm OK with changing the points/band scheme, but I suspect it would
     be valuable to retain some point advantage for the bands above 1296.
     Perhaps 3/4 points per Q versus the proposed 2/3 points?

My $0.02 worth.... 73, Frank KT1VT (sometimes KT1VT/R)

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