[NLRS] Rovermania: Reaching out to others to generate growth

[Gerald]

On Fri, 2005-06-17 at 09:19 -0700, Todd Sprinkmann wrote:
>   Gerald,
> 
>   I know what you mean about the too-quick QSY.  But I can say first-hand 
> that W9FZ was great at calling QRZ several times before he QSY'ed.  I was 
> able to work him on all my bands in 7 of the 8 grids he roved in, with no 
> difficulty at all.  Only reason I missed him in EN64 was that I slept in too 
> late Sat. AM.

I've not worked FZ often if at all. EN64 is a long path from the SW
corner of EN32.
> 
>   It also helps if you can have more than one rig.  I would stay parked on 
> Bruce's freq's of 222.140 and 432.140, just in case I missed him on 144.240. 
> Often I would hear him lightly on either 222 or 432, and I'd be even more 
> aware of where he was going.  And I was hearing him on 222 and 432 well into 
> N and NW Wisconsin.

I had two rigs, one on 6 and 222 and the other on 2 and 432 with rapid
band change, and was often successful in following a pair of stations
from band to band, but a polite tail end call waiting until they
completed their contact was apparently never heard as they had hit the
bandswitch the instant the last one of them lifted the PTT button.
Perhaps I should be less polite and tail end in the middle, but unhappy
folks can remember who made them unhappy and hear even less well. ;<)

> 
>   A good rover or two in a direction that two population centers can hear at 
> the same time can be a huge asset.  All the fixed stations have to do is be 
> a little nimble with the VFO and the beam and you can really start racking 
> up Q's, with both the rover, and with the fixed stations (who have to slide 
> back and forth a little bit off the rover)  We've done this down here with 
> rovers like K0PG and K9ILT, as well as K9JK.  Sure it can get hectic, but 
> hey, considering we listen to dead air most of the time, I CRAVE the 
> activity that contests bring.

But if you can only start a string of band contacts with a rover or
fixed station by making contact first on 144.210+/-, that means the 2m
station needs to be the big rig, and you can't park on 432.100 +/- and
make contacts because too many don't pause for other contacts but zip
off to another band. That's my complaint. I have VHF contest
certificates from years in the past for SINGLE band operations, but
can't make the contacts on single bands anymore. Rapid bandswitching is
the culprit.
> 
>   73,
>   Todd  KC9BQA

-- 
73, Jerry, K0CQ
Dr. Gerald N. Johnson, electrical engineer
All content copyright, Dr. Gerald N. Johnson