W3ZZ wrote:
"...you should make your rover as inconspicuous as possible."
Inconspicuous rover will join down escalator, objective opinion, and
original copy as oxymorons. Unless you keep everything inside the
rover vehicle it is nearly impossible to be inconspicuous. Case in
point: In July 2008, I started in EN00 at my father in law's QTH to
rove in the July 2008 CQ contest. I stopped for gas on the way out of
town. I did the same thing in this September's VHF contest, stopping
at the same gas station. As I was checking out, the cashier commented,
"You were here last year weren't you? So a rover in conspicuous and
memorable. I had not been back with or without the rover in the
ensuing 14 months, but he remembered me.
In the June contest I dropped by the Grand Canyon on my rove to visit
the WA7JTM limited multi setup. As we drove into the booth to pay the
fee, the ranger said "You are ham radio operators right?" My wife, who
was driving said yes, and the ranger said "There are some more in the
camp ground" and gave us directions.
I have never been hassled by law enforcement officers in my roves,
although on two occasions they have slowed down to take a closer look
at me. In September and June, people figure I am a storm chaser. I
always get a kick out of talking to people about what I am doing and
promoting ham radio a bit. For some reason the motorcyclists seem most
interested. When parked people always want to know if we drive with
those antennas like that. Yes we do and usually only hit something
every 3 or 4 roves.
Now I suppose a lot of this is geographically related and there is a
lot of public land out here where people tend to leave you alone. And
there are a lot of county roads in the midwest and west where you can
park in the road and not bother anyone. I have operated for several
hours at some sites and not seen anything but cattle. They expect to
be fed when a vehicle pulls up and come running a long ways to see a
rover. - Duffey
--
KK6MC
James Duffey
Cedar Crest NM
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