[VHFcontesting] Captive Rovers - a mythical beast?

[jon jones]

Hi Bill:

Yes... it was Dean, WA0TKJ. His truck was one of the "rover" vehicles we 
outfitted. He didn't drive it but stayed at the main station to operate. 
Dean was one of the very first rovers.

It was the 1987 June VHF Q P. WB0DRL had hour anfter hour of 6M Es both days 
all the way to Hawaii, 2M Es to Florida Sunday and tropo all the way to 
W2SZ/1 Sunday morning. It was the "perfect storm" for VHF propagation that 
midwest ops dream of - and the opportunity to win it all in the contest. The 
first 220 MHz Es QSO was made in this contest.

I sincerely believe we would have beat W2SZ/1 that year - but for one 
critical error. The 6M op left his operating position to operate 220 
MHz(this was before 222 MHz) during the tropo opening while 6M was wide 
open. Thus WB0DRL lost around 5 hours of 6M Es running time that Sunday 
morning. If you go back to the contest write-up, check K5JL's 6M line score. 
Plug it in instead of WB0DRL's - and we would have beat W2SZ/1.

Working tropo all the way to W1 and W2 land on 220 MHz from Kansas was too 
enticing for the 6M op to ignore.


The 6M op was me.

- Jon N0JK


>From: "Bill Olson" <callbill at hotmail.com>
>To: n0jk at hotmail.com, vhfcontesting at contesting.com
>Subject: RE: [VHFcontesting] Captive Rovers - a mythical beast?
>Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 13:39:26 +0000
>
>Hi Jon, Ah yes... That would have been Dean, WB0TKJ/M NOT /R because this 
>was before there was any such thing as a rover!! So since there were no 
>rovers I guess one could not be called a "captive" one! That was also 
>before folks discussed the "morality" of contesting. I seem to remember 
>everyone really applauded the effort!!! Ah for the good old days!!!
>
>bill K1DY
>