[VHFcontesting] Limited Roving - Worth the Effort?

[Shupienis, Joseph]

WARNING! LONG-WINDED RANTING FOLLOWS! WARNING!

Rovers expend a lot of resources to put "relatively rare" grids on the air for everyone to enjoy. The enjoyment we get is to work as many stations as we can from those rare-ish grids. It's a bit of a let-down to use up $60 of gas to go to a nice mountaintop in a much-wanted grid, only to make a grand total of 11 Qs, even though I can hear lots of stations working the big boys. Then, after working only the big signals, it seems the multitude turn their beams away, never to be heard again until I reach the next grid and the cycle of frustration begins anew.

Of course I can work the big guns with ease, but it seems that no one else besides them bothers to look for weak signals in the "weak signal" part of the band. Sometimes it seems that the only signals that get people's attention are those directly on the calling frequencies that jump out of the speaker, run up, and slap the operator in the face! And after they have worked all 10 of those in the first hour or so, it seems a lot of ops turn off their radios for the rest of the contest to go watch some ballgame on TV and drink beer. No matter which grid I start in, it is always the most productive. So I guess I should start at the most wanted grid, huh?

I can call CQ on 144.210 or .180 for hours with nary an answer, and then someone 200 miles away stumbles across me and honestly (I hope) informs me that I'm S7 or 10 over S9 on his S-meter. Then they profusely thank me for the grid multiplier from FN11 or FN01, or wherever I am, and we walk up the bands. Then it's back to my "run" frequency for more fruitless CQing (if someone else who's S9+30 hasn't jumped on it the second I went to 432 -- and that same someone "can't hear" me when I try to work him!)

I don't get it.

If I can easily hear another station who is running the same power level I am, why can't they seem hear me? I've had to resort to strictly S&P, and can usually work everyone I can hear, and can work them again on the other bands. So I know I can be heard. It's just getting kind of frustrating to realize that maybe a lot of people don't know I exist, or just don't want to bother looking for me. 

But then if they accidentally find me, they profusely thank me for the new multipliers I give them and ask where I'm going next.

And then, of course, at the next grids I'll never hear from them again, unless it's their half-hour ragchew with one of their buddies. Why is it that they are both S9 plus on my receiver, but when they say their fond farewells and 73s and 88s and get back to contesting, neither one can hear me call them, and then turn their beams away and tune off frequency?

I don't get it. 

Then I see rover scores from other rovers who claimed to work the same grids I work from. I have yet to hear a single one of them on the air. And their scores are usually 50-100 times my pathetic numbers. They must have rates of 100-200 QPH... somehow...

I don't get it.

I would like to add 222 to my lineup. I've tried to save up for it, but so far I've wasted all the money on $4.00/gallon gas to make, what? 1,000 points?

There are many good contesters out there. I have worked every one I can hear, and handed out as many multipliers as I can to every station that is willing to make the effort to work me. It just seems that lately, more stations are "getting away" and must be looking for easier stations to work than my weak rover signals (and weak bank account) allow.

Oh wait -- I think I'm starting to get it now... Nobody told them I'm there or that they might have to listen carefully to dig out my piddly, weak, little signal...

- RANTING COMPLETE -

Thanks for listening, I feel better getting that off my chest.

See you on 6 and 2 in the CQ WW VHF test!

73 de Joe W3BC