[VHFcontesting] A reply to n5ac and other rover related ramblings

[frank bechdoldt]

N5AC wrote:
“ If Wayne and his friends are having funand it's not messing with the scores/rank of those doing what we mightconsider more traditional roving, what's the problem?”
 
It is messing with the rank of people entering.
 
The VUAC, ARRL and QST were quite clear in saying that “the unlimited class was for designed for people who grid circle or do other non traditional roving techniques.”  This would include tactics like working your own “team mates” for 98% of your QSO points and Multipliers.
 
However Wayne loaned his lunch boxes with a few other stations who all worked each other for last years January Contest.  The teams worked themselves as all three rover classes and won the top places in each roving category nationally. This afftected everyone below them.
 
The ARRL, VUAC, and QST said “the new limited rover was set up for new people with ICOM 706 type radios to expose them to VHF.”  The clear intent was it to be on common radios, however they wanted to leave some leverage for a new guy to pick a 4th band on their own since all but the TS 2000 had three bands.  The result was Wayne’s Lunch Box caravan putting the limited rovers on 4 microwave bands for greater points. Thus defeating the intention of the new class.  
 
            To keep with the original intent, this now forces the ARRL  change to using the bottom four bands, instead of letting a new person pick what transverter to buy as his fourth band.  Wayne’s action resulted in an unfortunate limitation on a new participant. Some places do better on 1.2 than 222. 1.2 ssb gear is easier to get and is more “value added, because you can do sats or tv with it.”  So a newbie might pick that instead of a 222 transverter.
 
            The result has messed with the ranking. But  evidence is hard to obtain  when the ARRL will not post the logs and the leader of Lunch Box roving sits on a board that considers a rule to add that to the contest requirements. However QST has stated that this behavior has caused teams to win with 98 percent in team QSOs.  This has affected every  rover’s ranking.
 
            I know my national and regional ranking has suffered in the past based on some of the people ahead of me had team mates giving them extra multipliers.  IE in some contests I activate the most grids and get the most unique number of other stations  but I do not place as high because others work the same team mate again and again for a moderate percentage of  multiplies and QSO points.  And in the Lunch Box caravan’s case, they work each other exclusively for  over 95% of their QSOs during some of the contests.
 
            I enter the contests competively while doing good for the hams up here in the northwest. However I have backed off roving in every contests because the lack of effectively addressing this issue in the rules devalued my participation. My rover to rover percentage has rarely gone above 15 percent of my qsos. Though I was just as valued by my local piers.  The situation has discouraged others.  A clean break between the two operating styles were in order and that was the clear and stated intent of the rule change. I was excited last year to get back in, but when Wayne’s group boasted on how they used the rules against the intent of the contest I backed off again. 
 
            There may be some value in the way they operate. However, when I personally compare it to the excitement I get working someone across a field vs someone across a State on a microwave band I see a vast difference of excitement.  Perhaps they get their excitement from a vast number of line of sight contacts and the socialization of the 7 different type rovers working together.  The bottom line is the 2 methods are as different as QRP and high power or single op and multi op. 
 
N5AC wrote:
“To point to an unknown third party and state that they might not approve if they knew seems disingenuous ...   Calls for Wayne and company to publish logs has come and gone and Wayne did publish his logs a few years back.”
 
The example below is semi-hypothetical but can happen based on the old rover rules.
 
            All numbers in this are relevant. Per say if a guy had 7 people traveling with him in a grid circling team that would be 7 x 16 x 10 or 1120 qsos.   Now repeat this twice as they have often done in the past.  Now we are at 3360 qsos in one station’s log working his team mates.  In this process 10 x 12 multipliers were given out plus the 12 mults for activating 12 grids.  So that’s 3360 QSO’s x 132 multipliers for a score of 1.7 million before making a contact with no greater distance  than the eye can see or some can throw a frisbee.  This part is solid numbers of an effective team.
 
 Now lets say he works “ a lot” of other people, IE 2% (as in the past)  that’s another 66 QSOs and lets assume they are on the lower bands worth 2 points on average and lets guess there is 30 more multipliers.  That would make the QSO points in the neighborhood of 13500 against 196 multipliers for a grand total of  2.6 million. That 2 percent random QSO value becomes extremely inflated.
 
Another rover without a team  who had 30 multipliers at 4 points a qso average and 66 qsos would get 30X4X 66  or about 8000 points.  
 
The difference between the two, one guy did it randomly on his own gear and only got 8000 points.  
 
The other guy built and paid for 8 stations, loaned out 7 of them with the intent to work the owner and each other to boost up his score and perhaps a club score from the non unlimited rovers.  The same amount of random (sportsman like in my book) QSO’s is the same between both situations. 
 
Again  the numbers are hypothetical, the practice is well documented by the participants themselves and articles in past QSTs stating a 98 percent team QSO rate.
 
N5AC
“when was the last time you gotsomeone involved in roving or microwave contesting that became confidentenough to take a 10-band station in a car a few days after getting a licenseand make a bunch of contacts?”
 
I have had 3 roving partners. My dad who has been a ham for 30 years but never did vhf plus SSB work.  A Wife and my 8 year old son who operated and logged some in the rover. (I was disappointed that the ARRL didn’t put and as I entered it for the results in last Sept.) So I taught a 8 year old how to run a 6 band station in about an hour. Its not hard. 
Hit the band switch….,
 turn that amp on,
No switch it to FM ok now USB.
No don’t touch the VFO!
Leave the RIT alone!
 write the what I tell you down while I drive or enter them into the computer.  
I had a hands free set up while driving, though I was slow to respond to calls because I was interfacing with a child.  He also slept a lot and I pulled over to make/ log contacts.
I even let him run the mike which seemed to confuse people. K3UHF/R Andy at the mike. 
Daddy what does DN05 mean?  It means we are in the middle of nowhere!
 
Lets see what the ARRL error checker says of my 8 year old’s logging!
 
Building it is another issue.  7 of 8 of this years team used borrowed gear to win.  There should be some ownership level to win an award if not a multi-op.  IE 50 percent self owned gear. Only borrow stuff for 2 contests.  Ect….  
 
As far as pointing to third parties as a disingenuous act (such as AT&T). We all know that our spectrum is targeted by corporate as well as government interests.  To think different is like having a Osterige drive the bus. I do not to need to name a third party by name to know they want us off the spectrum.  
 
If the ARRL went to bat to defend the microwave bands, would you want to point to Wayne’s Lunch Box Caravan as justification to stopping the expansion of some civil service or communication need.  No you would want to point to some activity  more tangible than a guy working his own equipment in Death Valley. IE rain scatter research, emergency communications. Practice in case of emergency comms are needed.  
 
I can picture the Sub committee hearing.  (this is satire QUIT READING NOWJ)
 
ARRL: “Yeah well we need those ands for emergency communications senator Spertor..  You see there were 13500 contacts in southern California in June of last year alone.”
 
Senator:  “Oh really?  What was there purpose?”
 
ARRL:  “Well we have contacts that help people refine their technical skills and stations in event of emergencies.”  
 
Senator: “I see. Where do they communicate too and from?”
 
ARRL:  “ Ugh… well in Death Valley.”
 
Senator: “ Oh, you mean across the desert from like LA to Las Vegas/”
 
ARRL:  “Well No, its really all done on a ranch and some public land at a few key places where longitudes and latitudes meet.”
 
Senator:  “What?  How far do they communicate?”   
 
ARRL:   “Anywhere from 300 to 1000 yards. Its neat some of them even use lasers!”
 
Senator:  “what do these communication systems look like?”
 
ARRL:    “Well sir that’s the real kicker. Our best technician made 8 of these stations and fit them in small boxes and put them on top of people’s cars so they can talk to each other a few hundred yards across arbitrary longitude and latitude intersections in the desert Southwest.”
 
Senator:  “ Are you serious?  This isn’t some weird Howard Stern or Star Trek geek prank?”
 
ARRL: “No I’m serious, its cool one guy built all of them so they could talk to each other.”
 
Senator: “So you want me to deny the military, public and corporate needs based on conversations between lunch boxes in un populated regions of the desert South West/”
 
ARRL:  “Yes, who are we to judge the value of the use of that spectrum?”
 
Senator:  “That’s enough.  I move to pass SB3400 to the house to give the 900  mhz and 2.4 ghz bands Sony for the use in the new Barbie wireless Easy Bake Oven.”
73s
Frank
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