[VHFcontesting] I can't stay quiet any longer

[w7my at yahoo.com]

Joe,I understand what you are saying, I resonate with many of your points, particularly the "ground hog day" reporting in QST that glorifies the same ole boys every contest. 
I made this statement earlier in this thread and received a personal response which I appreciated but I was asked to "read" the resuts again with an open mind. So I did; I read the just published results in QST for the September contest; here is my review.
Page 83.
Center page, the top 10, with the exception of the rover category, hardly anyone west of the mississippi as usual. mostly the same ole calls, "ground hog day". Text on the page, talk of the weather, drop off of participation (I wonder why?) and propagation discussion, all east coast.
Page 82-83Results
Single op - all east coast talk
PAGE 84Multiop - all east coast and some midwest.
HEY- WE HAVE REGIONAL RESULTS!! OOPS, ONE COLUMN OF WEST COAST YEA!
Page 85top grids worked - all east coast, HEY a few mid-west snuck in, WOW!
Rovers- Wow, mentioned two one east coast stations, WOW
TOP GRIDS activiate - WOW two west coasters, (got to change the rules, too many)
Club competition scores & text - MENTIONED ONE WEST COAST CLUB, amazing!


Don't get me wrong, I believe the results are very well written, professional, interesting, BUT the format only emphasizes the east coast stations and guess what? I'm sick and tired of it!
Joe has worked hard at making grids available as do I making DN-06 as available as I can.I'm fortunate that our PNWVHFS makes independent awards for its members so the regional efforts are acknowledged. Joe doesn't even get that.
I could have ended my station with a single radio and three antennas and not significantly reduced my scores but I like Joe made very large investments in equipment and time to get meger improvements in score but provide Q's for other grids. 
Some if not most hams like to see their efforts acknowledged. If you want the participation to INCREASE, start with doing a better job of acknowledging the efforts with equality in QST, change the format; no more "ground hog day" results.
---------------------------------------------------------Greg Chartrand - W7MY Richland, WA.DN-06IF
W7MY Home Page:http://webpages.charter.net/w7my/
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------I can't stay quiet any longer.
I started roving a couple years ago because:
  1. I spend my weekends at a QTH that is 300' below average terrain but in a "rare" grid  2. I have always liked hilltopping, and contests give me a chance to actually talk to people!  3. I have a mobile radio that does SSB and CW on 3 VHF and UHF bands  4. I enjoy designing and building antennas, and rover antennas pose "interesting" challenges  5. I am fairly competitive, and like anyone, hope to be recognized for achievement  7. I can rove to several "rare" grids with few native active hams, and even fewer weak signal enthusiasts. I like handing out those grids and enjoy hearing the appreciation for the new multipliers.  8. I enjoy identifying and trying out good, new VHF sites  9. I get a real thrill struggling to complete a 300-400+ mile 432 QSO, especially with only 35 watts and a homebrew beam at 15 feet!
My first roving efforts were pretty pathetic, but soon became more organized. I started to get noticed, and it was a real kick to have the big guns looking for me! I've received section awards a couple of times, and am proud of what was accomplished with only 3 bands and no amplifiers.
Unfortunately, there is no chance I can ever "win" a contest when I have to compete with a bunch of sponsored, pre-packaged, appliance stations that could probably be operated by a monkey.
It irritates the crap out of me to look at all the money I spend to make a marginal improvement in my rover capabilities, and know that it is all for nothing, while someone who can't even spell VHF is given -- yes GIVEN -- a pre-built, 10 band station and goes out on their first trip and makes 100x my score.
Especially when their best DX was never more than a few yards. No 300-mile Qs for THEM!
What discourages me the most is that I have spent all I can afford and still have a 3-band peanut whistle. I'd be delighted if someone with a colossal bank account (and hopefully not an ego to match) would hand ME a pre-packaged, debugged, idiot-proof, 10-band V/U/SHF station-in-a-box. As long as I could use it to actually participate in the contest, and not be obligated to the group circle.
To add insult to injury, when the contest results are published, the appliance operators displace the rest of us from the top-n listings. If I only had to compete with other rovers who rove the way I do, in the words of Terry Malloy "I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum."
As it is now, I'm only listed on page 174, or suffer the ultimate humiliation of "Visit the website for full results."
Severe winter weather wiped out all my contesting plans in January. If I rove at all in June, it may well be my last rove. After all, why waste all that time and money, only to be a lose before I even start?
I guess it could be summed up as: I HAVE TO WORK HARD for every QSO by doing it the old-fashioned way, and try to work every station I can hear, and actively seek out DX -- and I lose the contest. The winner BUYS the contest by equipping a bunch of people who really don't give a hoot about VHF weak signal work.
If that's really the way it is -- that the Rover contest is for sale -- then screw it. I'm done. I will happily go back and operate again at one of the "East Coast Monopoly Stations."
73 de Joe, W3BC