[NLRS] Time to define the terms!

[Baker, Donn B]

Hi Jim,
Whoa.  You mean nobody gave you the secret handshake when you bought your
VHF gear ?  We'll have to look into that!!

A "Dog pack" is two or more Rovers traveling more or less together.  The
negative connotation is that they do this for the purpose of grid circling.
Rovers certainly can dog pack without grid circling, as we all did it on the
North Shore.  

"Grid Circling" is where two or more Rovers go to a grid corner, and
operated each other using every possible combination of grid location.  
Ex: W0AAA and K0ZZZ go out to the EN24/EN35 corner near Winstead.
	W0AAA sets up in EN24, while K0ZZZ operates in EN24, EN25, EN35, and
EN34.
	W0AAA moves to EN25, and K0ZZZ then does EN24, EN25, EN35, and EN34
again.
	W0AAA moves to EN35, etc.

If the Rovers have, say 10 bands, and do this at two or three sets of grid
corners they can have a 100,000+ point score WITHOUT EVER WORKING ANOTHER
STATION.

IMPORTANT NOTE: "Grid Circling" is NOT prohibited by the contest Rover
rules.  It is discouraged by the Grid mulitplier scoring rule, which says
that you count only UNIQUE GRIDS WORKED.  That is, W0AAA gets to count EN24,
EN25, EN35, and EN34 only once per band, plus once each for having operated
from that grid.  In the example, that's 10 bands X 4 grids = 40 plus 4 = 44
grid multipliers.

Under the Rover rules pre-'96 (?), it would have been 10 bands X 4 grids for
EACH GRID OPERATED FROM, or a whopping 160 Grid Multipliers !!

As usual, the rules change had some un-intended consequences.  It remove the
incentive for Rovers to travel to more remote (read, unpopulated by hams)
grids.  Rovers now tend to stay where they can make lots of Qs.  Along the
East Coast, this isn't a problem... few "rare grids."  Out here, its a MAJOR
problem... lots and LOTS of rare grids.  I gave up Roving mostly because of
the rule change.  Too much traveling for too few Qs, and little to show for
it in the way of score.  Simply NOT POSSIBLE to compete with the East Coast.
Can't get the number of Qs, and can't get the grid multiplers that I could
under to old rules.  Also, as fewer grids get activated, fixed stations get
lower scores, its harder to increase the VUCC count, etc.

73 Donn
WA2VOI/0
-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Hermanek [mailto:jhermanek1@earthlink.net]
Sent: Thursday, October 10, 2002 3:13 PM
To: NLRS Reflector
Subject: [NLRS] Time to define the terms!



Ok..  OK...  For those of us newer to VHF/UHF &  contesting in general, I'd
like to make sure I understand what the terms "grid circling" and "dog
packing" really mean???    Someone have a brief explanation, please.

Thanks!

73s      Jim     K0KFC


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