On Wed, 27 May 2009 15:09:23 -0500, "Todd Sprinkmann" <sprinkies@excel.net>
wrote:
> Todd KC9BQA says,
> John, let's not be confused or deceived. The "win at all cost" mentality
> is embraced by a very small group of stations that consistently craft a
> strategy that creates a huge score without working as many amateurs as
> possible. Nor do they use antennas that are capable of working beyond the
> range they determined as optimum for their strategy. If more rovers decide
> to imitate this strategy, it will be a bad thing for V/UHF Contesting.
>
> So a most impressive outlay of $$ and equipment, and planning all goes
> toward an effort that turns its back on the rank-and-file contesting
> community. What a waste. But hey, they're winners... <spit>
>
> Folks, John's right about one thing. You'd better do it for fun, first
> and foremost. If it's not fun, what's the point?
>
First of all, isn't winning the idea? It is a contest, after all.
Second, and this is an honest question, are you just repeating what you've
heard through the grapevine or do you have personal knowledge that they
don't work as many stations as possible? That they don't work stations that
they can hear? Think about that for a minute, though - that doesn't make
sense. If you're going to win at all costs, why would you pass up QSO
points? And if the stations in question only worked each other their scores
would be the same, right? Since they aren't they must be working others. I
don't know Wayne or anyone in his group, so I don't have any personal
knowledge of their operating practices either.
Granted, they get a lot of mults by traveling to many grid squares during
the contest so I don't know how much time is actually spent sitting and
looking for new stations as compared with driving, but that's the fault of
the contest scoring structure that rewards going to as many grids as you
can. Which is still something the ARRL hasn't addressed - if you intend to
"fix" grid circling, change the scoring to make it an ineffective strategy
not the bands guys can take with them. But they don't travel to that many
more squares... In August UHF they went to 10, the next guys down went to
7. If the other stations tweaked their route, maybe they could travel to
more grids and get more mults (maybe they can't, I'm just speculating).
They post pictures of their antennas they use - it's not like they don't
have some gain to them. The "lunchbox stations" that everyone villifies
have antennas that range from 11 to 25 elements and a dish. You can work
more than across a field with that. Personally I think those lunchboxes are
genius - some thought definitely went into their construction. (
http://commfaculty.fullerton.edu/woverbeck/rover.htm#jan09)
To anybody that says, "this is an operating contest not a building contest,"
you're kidding yourself. Better equipment will always have an advantage.
If you can afford a 200 foot tower, you're better off than a guy like me
that can't. Contests are absolutely about station engineering as well as
operating - your stuff has to work well for you to make as many contacts as
possible. Like Rome, W1RT's Intergalatic Rover Battle Jitney obviously
wasn't built in a day.
And when did it become wrong to look at the rules to create an effective
strategy? Hey, if you're not looking at the rules to create an effective
strategy to get more points then you're giving points away. Lord knows at
N9UHF we look at the rules all the time to try and maximize our score and
recruit others to either join the group or make contacts with us during the
contest. Maybe we're evil too :-D. Just don't let that stop you from
working us in June, Todd! :-)
73! Chris N9YH
--
Chris Burke
chris@n9yh.com
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