I've got a dog in this fight (I purchased W3IY's rover a couple months
before he passed away), so I might as well join in :)
Captive rovers don't bother me at all, they don't compete with me. All
benefits go to the mothership, and the losers are all the other fixed
stations that don't get the grids/points. Before buying Bill's rig I
was an active member of the K8GP group, and although we help out the
local 'indy' rovers as much as possible we've never had any 'captives'
of our own. I don't see any easy way to deal with the captive problem
without onerous logging submission requirements and post-test
analysis/disqualification .. unlikely.
Circling is a harder question for me. Certainly I've started a 'test
at a grid corner, and if there are other rovers present at the corner
I certainly work them, but circling as an exclusive strategy for
winning seems silly and boring to me. It affects me because no matter
how much I improve my station capabilities and find better operating
spots there is no way I can ever approach the point totals obtainable
by circling/pack ops. For that reason I think there needs to be some
kind of change, whether it's a different category or
distance-handicaps or whatever ..
John, I'd be interested to see a breakdown of the points totals for
those 4 grid-circling hours vs the 17 hours en-route/working others ..
Not attacking, just discussing :)
de w1rt/john for the east coast grid grinders
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