[VHFcontesting] One Missing Rover

[John Geiger]

One think that I have been thinking of recently is that we need a mobile
category for the VHF contests-for people who go mobile but who don't meet
the rover requirements.  With the proliferation of HF/VHF/UHF mobile rigs,
we may have the guy who is out running errands on saturday and sunday
afternoon, and who turns on 6 to find the band open so he makes a few
contest Qs.  Or the ham who operates while driving back and forth to
Grandmother's house for the weekend.

If neither of these travel to another grid square they fall into the black
hole of entries: They can't enter as a rover because they didn't activate
more than 1 grid, and they can't enter as a single op because of the 300
meter rule.  Do we really want to tell these potential contesters that we
don't care about them and that their QSOs don't count for anything?

73s John AA5JG
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Eric Smith" <kb7dqh at donobi.net>
To: "John Geiger" <aa5jg at lcisp.com>; <Jimk8mr at aol.com>;
<vhfcontesting at contesting.com>
Sent: Wednesday, August 08, 2007 9:01 PM
Subject: Re: [VHFcontesting] One Missing Rover


> AMEN!  I like the "shore power" rule change also, then I
> got to thinking about it for just a second and realized
> that any abuses such as visiting inactive fixed stations in
> different grids and running with your own callsign is
> covered in other rules...
>
> Imagine the entire K8GP operation operating from two or
> three mountaintops during a contest... With just a bit of
> extra effort they could pull it off!
>
> Hmmm... W2SZ/1 ROVER????  They already have the  gear set
> up in utilty trucks, so setting the antennas up on tower
> trailers isn't too much of a stretch...
>
> To that end, four ARRL UHF contests ago, I ran my latest
> "portable amateur radio station"
> as a single op rover.  Pictures of the vehicle are on the
> ARRL website in the soapbox area.  Easiest way to find them
> is to "google" my callsign.
>
> I have even taken two other operators along on two
> different January VHF contests.  I did not send in the logs
> as this would have violated current rules, but, this was a
> good way to test the gear "all at once" and found that it
> is indeed possible to run modestly high power on several
> bands at once with antennae in close proximity and not tear
> up the stations not actively transmitting too much.  Some
> increase in noise floors with certain equipment
> combinations did occur, subsequently changes in the station
> equipment has minimized this greatly.
>
> My current configuration provides for a driver, 6 meter
> operator, two meter operator, 222/432 Mhz operator,
>  903-10368  operator, and two other "hot-racking" relief
> drivers or radio operators.  The 222/432 rigs are separate,
> so that operator could conceivably have his hands full on
> occasion, but I think this evenly distributes the typical
> VHF contest workload evenly among the operators, and could
> keep the stations on the air thru an entire 30 hour contest
> period.
>
> How's that for "adopting operating practices that allow as
> many stations as possible to contact (the rover)"???
> Eric
> KB7DQH
>
>
> On Wed, 8 Aug 2007 18:46:32 -0000
>  "John Geiger" <aa5jg at lcisp.com> wrote:
> > Also,eliminate the requirement that a rover can have only
> > 1 or 2 operators
> > (which includes the driver).  Can't see the logic in that
> > one either.
> >
> > 73s John AA5JG
> >
>