[VHFcontesting] Pack Rovers meet ARRL contest objectives

[Kenneth E. Harker]

On Mon, Aug 15, 2005 at 11:41:33AM -0400, Buck - N4PGW wrote:
> I have been seeing this thread for quite some time, but I am not quite sure
> I understand it as it relates to this controversy.  What is a 'captive' as
> it relates to this thread?

A "captive rover" generally describes a rover whose activity in the contest
is exclusively intended to benefit a particular fixed station.  The rover
may be using equipment partially or entirely supplied by the fixed station,
is on a schedule to be at certain locations at certain times to make QSOs
on certain bands, and is expected to make contacts with other stations if 
and only if it has time between making contacts with the mother ship it is 
intended to help.  The equipment the captive rovers use might be very low 
power - capable of making contact with the mother ship but not much further -
or operate on frequencies (such as 908 MHz) that nobody else uses, which 
further impedes their capability to make QSOs with other stations.

The combined efforts of these captive rovers are clearly not in the spirit of
fair competition against other fixed stations, and a lot of us feel it should 
be banned as cheating.  So far, it has only poisoned the M/U class.

-- 
Kenneth E. Harker WM5R
kenharker at kenharker.com
http://www.kenharker.com/