[VHFcontesting] Rover behavior: How about trying to address "it" withOUT having to define "it"?

[John (JK) Kalenowsky, K9JK]

>Jim, AF6O <mail at jimforsyth.com> wrote:
>
>Well there is a common understanding, in principle, of both captive
>roving and grid circling and there has been a lot of discussion of both
>on here and some of it has been meaningful. The problem comes when you
>need an exact definition to be used in a rule, then you discover it is
>impossible to pin either of them down with precision so that you could
>say this station is doing it and that station is not doing it.
>
>I would be amused to see a rule with a definition of either because then
>the game would be to operate just on the legal side of the line and the
>whole arguement would start up again.
>
>73 Jim, AF6O
>
Thanks for that "opening" Jim.

Summary...I think the area to address is the "Scoring" methodology...and NOT 
with Quotas or limits or having to be worried about "defining" the behavior. 
If the incentive is not there in the scoring methodology, the behavior will 
change.

There are multiple factors at work here and what seems to be a lot of 
different interpretations of what is what. Grid Circling, Pack Roving, Grid 
Dancing, Captive Roving, Captive Pack Roving, Grid Pack Circling Captive 
Dancing Roving...yow, I'm sure there are many, many more names and 
descriptions with combinations and variations of these words.

Whether or not rovers who participate in "whatever we choose to refer to or 
define this form of activity" work stations OTHER than their "partner 
rover(s)" is somewhat "secondary"...the BASELINE score possible by having 
one (or more) OTHER stations with capability for the GHz bands travelling in 
the same areas/to the same set of Grid Squares PROVIDES THE OPPORTUNITY to 
generate LOTS of FOUR point QSOs (EIGHT pointers in January), regardless of 
ham population in the vicinity, IS significant whether 354 OTHER contacts 
are made (out of 994 in June 2006, predominantly in SJV) or 10-100 or so 
(out of counts in the 2,000 range in January 2005, predominantly in WTX).

This is NOT intended to be an attack on John, N6MU (GREAT First Name, by the 
way ;-) or the others involved (N6HC, W6XD and KG6TOA) in June 2006, or 
those involved in the January 2005 achievement, just using it as an example 
to demonstrate this "advantage" of the baseline scores, and since John HAS 
contributed to the reflector regarding this. Let us also NOT forget that 
these two (or three) rovers were out and covered LOTS OF Grid Squares (16 by 
2 in June 2006, 22 by 3 in January 2005) with equipment capable of TEN 
Bands...IMHO, that IS an ACHIEVEMENT.

Looking at the numbers from the Scores Database from the ARRL Members-only 
area for the 2006 June Contest, let's note that the QSO and Multiplier 
Totals for N6MU and W6XD ARE INDENTICAL for the 3456, 5760 and 10G 
Bands...who do you suppose THOSE QSOs were with? Were they worked over a 
GREAT distance or "just across the grid borders"? Maybe a few were "more 
distant" but I suspect it was the latter case for the majority of 
them...it's only at 2304 and below where it appears that OTHER stations were 
worked (it's not that many at 2304, and even for 902 and 1296, the count of 
"other" QSOs is only in the "teens"). SO...what would N6MU's score have been 
withOUT all of the QSOs (and multipliers not worked) from the roving 
"partner", W6XD? (And feel free to correct me John, or any of the others 
involved).

Even if JUST the 3456, 5760 and 10G QSOs and multipliers were "not 
there"...N6MU's QSO and multiplier totals drop by a total of 192 and 48, 
respectively, leaving 802 Qs and 175 Multipliers...but QSO points drop by 
768 for a revised score of 266,000 for N6MU...that's a drop of ALMOST 50% in 
score. 64 QSOs were made between the two stations on each of the other 7 
bands but it's hard to be certain of how many multipliers were provided by 
stations besides the other rover so it should be clear that the ultimate 
impact of NOT having the other, similarly equipped Rover travelling the 
similar route, would be greater. ON THE OTHER HAND, without the other rover 
to work, maybe more time would have been spent on other bands, maybe there 
WERE stations that could have been worked on 3456, 5760 and 10G had more 
time been available (though it most certainly would NOT have yielded 64 QSOs 
x 10 bands).

SO...might the area to address be the SCORING system? This IS a contest and 
SCORING IS a part of it. Probably ANY scoring system will have a way to be 
"optimized" from the other parameters of the contest and. As Buck, KC2HIZ, 
wrote: "The rules are there specifically to be exploited; to find the way to 
make the most points." I read some consensus that "quotas" will be 
ineffective and, whether my read is accurate or not, I agree with that.

What follows is some analysis of two options that I have seen based on MY 
interpretation of them with continued to "picking on" N6MU's June 2006 
Results.

#1. - QSOs with Rovers only worth ONE point each (regardless of band).

I remember a proposal to make QSOs with Rovers only worth ONE point each, 
regardless of band...THIS is a place where that might level the playing 
field a bit. Yes, there are tradeoffs...will a Fixed station work hard to 
copy a rover on one of the higher bands in a distant Grid Square, ESPECIALLY 
where there is a Fixed station that will probably be (or already was) a LOT 
easier to work (and worth FOUR or EIGHT points versus ONE)? Well...a QSO 
Point is STILL a QSO Point, the Fixed station will have to make THAT call. 
And this WOULD impact Fixed Station Scores as well.

It would certainly have a score impact for a Rover having a lot of Qs with 
another Rover (or multiple other rovers)..."picking on" the N6MU score from 
June again and going with 640 QSOs being with the other rover (though John 
ALSO mentions having worked AL1VE/R)...for 50 and 144, the QSOs are worth 
ONE point anyway so no difference...BUT, take away 1 point for 64 QSOs on 
each of 222 and 432, 2 points for 64 QSOs on each of 902 and 1296 and 3 
points for 64 QSOs on the 4 higher bands (but leaving all the Multipliers 
intact), that's a drop of 1152 QSO Points for that, resulting in a score of 
253,328 (just over a 50% reduction).

#2. - MY interpretation of what was in one of Frank, K3UHF's 
postings..."Another solution is to only count the grid when working a 
repeated rover and not the points. This forces other contacts."

This, too, would have an impact. First, it would remove any "advantage" for 
a Rover-to-Rover QSOs from jumping around to make ALL SIXTEEN QSO 
possibilities on each band at a Grid Corner, THAT sounds like a PLUS to 
me...and it WOULD still provide for a way to ease one of my gripes about 
being a rover going to less/NON-"active" Grid Squares...many times I've 
given OUT a multiplier that I don't GET myself...UNLESS there happens to be 
another Rover in the area (and I WILL admit that I TOO, have "pack 
roved/grid circled" for this reason).

One way to possibly "justify" this in terms of "fairness" is that Fixed 
Stations are only in ONE Grid Square so the rover gets only ONE set of QSO 
points from working the Fixed Station from each Grid that the Rover visits 
BUT, it is possible for the Rover to work another ROVER MULTIPLE times from 
each Grid Square that the Rover visits...if the Rover were only allowed to 
"claim" one set of contact points (among all the bands) from each different 
Grid Square from which the OTHER rover is worked, that limits the scoring 
advantage of such behavior.

My interpretation would have the following impact on the N6MU June 2006 
score...instead of the QSO counts being "64" for each of the 10 bands with 
the other rover, only 16 would count for each band (no change in 
Multipliers); that drops the QSO total by 48 per band (480 total) and the 
QSO Point total by 1344, yielding 210,512 as the score (close to a 60% 
reduction).

To me, these are the types of things that seem workable, and there are 
probably ways to EXPLOIT these that I have not thought of.

I AM aware that there is a potential inequality for "casual" Rover-to-Rover 
QSOs in the second example where one rover operates as a "stop and shoot", 
staying in the same Grid Square for a longer period than a "run and gun" 
type rover who was moving quickly through different grids and happened to 
encounter each other within radio range...the "run and gun" rover has no 
incentive to work the "stop and shoot" rover more than once but the "stop 
and shoot" could get credit for each QSO and, potentially, the multipliers, 
from the "run and gun" rover...hopefully the Rovers could work that out in 
the spirit of fairness and in support of radio "sport" even though they are 
competitors.

Thanks for the bandwidth (and especially to anyone who has read THIS far). 
Hopefully "we" can spur some discussion/come up with some ideas that can 
produce positive changes acceptable for our community.

73, JK