[VHFcontesting] Rovers again

[John K9IJ]

At 05:59 PM 2/25/2004 -0600, Tree wrote:

>Well, I tried to bite by tongue, but decided to add my voice to this ongoing
>debate.
>
>Like some, I see three types of rovers:
>
>1. A "good" rover.
>2. A "captive" rover.
>3. A "circle" rover (my name for grid circling).
>
>A good rover does this:
>
>  - Drive to a grid and gets on the highest hill he can find.
>  - Gets on one of the calling frequencies
>  - Makes some noise and works the guys who calls him
>  - Announces that he is now going to so-and-so band.
>  - Spends a few minutes on as many bands as they have.
>  - Perhaps they drive towards the next grid and do all
>    of this again before going into the next grid.  Maybe
>    they also take a quick spin on two or six meters and
>    see if anyone they haven't worked is CQing.
>
>A captive rover does the same thing, except they don't make much noise on
>any calling frequency.  They find their multi-multi either CQing or on some
>pre-arranged frequency and then work them on all of their bands.  They turn
>off their junk and proceed to their next assigned spot.  The only people
>getting any enjoyment are those who are involved in the multi-multi.
>
>A circle rover does un-natural things that involve mostly working the other
>rovers in tow.  They might bother working a few other stations, but mostly
>it is more trouble than it is worth.
>
>So - if your goal is to increase activity on VHF bands - clearly "good"
>rovers do more to make the contest fun for the majority of the participants.
>
>Anyone doing #3 should be DQ'd using the fuzzy rule 2.3.5: "All Rovers are
>encouraged to adopt operating practices that allow as many stations as
>possible to contact them".  Imagine how much more fun they would generate
>if 3 rovers were being "good" as opposed to only working themselves.

You are making an assumption based on limited or faulty data. That assumption
being that rule 2.3.5 is inconsistent with grid circling. That is not 
necessarily
the case, and in fact it is seldom the case.

And if YOU are not a rover, why should you care ? Rovers compete against 
rovers.
In all of the discussion, I don't think I've seen ANY well known rover condemn
grid circling.  Yep, it can throw up a higher than usual score and occasionally
someone goes out and does it for that reason, but seldom at the expense of 
providing
a large amount of QSOs for everybody else out there.  I would doubt that 
there's
anyone here who's heard a rover team 'grid circling' that was unable to 
work all of
them if they called. And if 'that' hasn't happened to you, then your score 
(or potential
score) was never affected, so why should you care what the rovers do ?

John - K9IJ




-

John Rice  K9IJ
k9ij at vx5.com
Webmaster, Network Admin, Janitor
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