I feel I have to put a good word in for Terry, the rest of the K8GP
group, and most of the other multi-ops who support rover stations.
From time to time since K8GP has been seriously active, I've either
hiked up a hill with a QRP rig for a couple hours of operating in VHF
contests, or visited W1XX's various expeditions to rare and distant
grid squares. Over that time, I've worked a number of "their" rovers
such as W3IY over distances of over 300 miles. These weren't easy
contacts, and often took more than the usual 20 seconds to exchange
grid squares. Now, I don't know this for certain, but I would think
that if "their" rovers were only out there to make points for "them,"
these rovers wouldn't have spent that amount of time to work me.
They would have just packed up and moved on after working K8GP on
some out of the way frequency.
There are lots of rovers out there just trying to work as many guys
as they can, and the contest is more interesting as a result. To be
sure, the whole concept of rovers could be abused in a variety of
ways to only enhance a single station's score, whether that station
is a single-op or a multi-op. Maybe this has even been done within
the letter of the law, but not in the spirit of the law. This kind
of stuff has been going on for quite a while, and in fact was one of
the reasons why I made a choice to go on to other things.
It's good (and bad) to see that some things in life haven't changed over time.
Clarke K1JX
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