K9IJ's comments seem to try to state there isn't a problem here.
I disagree.
We all want to increase activity in our VHF bands. Therefore, it follows
that we want to increase the activity in the contests. The contests are
magnets for activity for both newcomers, and HF contest types.
Typically, when someone turns on a radio on a band like 222, 432, 903 or
1296, they might be lucky to hear one other person. However, during a
contest, the band is much more active and they can actually work people.
One of the types of people they might work are rovers who go off to far
away places where there might not normall be a station, and put a good
signal back into the population center to work a bunch of guys. This
is exciting for the guys back in the population center. It is a good
thing for the contest and helps make them more enjoyable for the people
who work the rover.
All of us have experienced the joy of finding a rover who we know we can work
on 4 or 6 bands that just showed up in a new grid. Most rovers have
experienced the rush when 30 or 40 QSOs are put in the log over a very
short period of time. It is like being DX.
The problem I see, is that having 3 very well equipped stations like the
ones shown at this URL:
http://www.eham.net/articles/7590
who are primarily working only themselves robs the "real" contest of many
opportunities to make the contest more fun. They are off in their own world
exploiting their interpretation of the rules and the current scoring forumla
to generate some numbers on a piece of paper (or web page). They are not
contributing to the overall activity in the contest.
The question is, do we want to discourage this type of activity?
The same logic follows for captive rovers.
Tree N6TR / K7RAT
tree@kkn.net
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