[NLRS] 222 and up and NLRS Limited Rover Award discussion

[Jon Platt]

My own two bits, I am not a fan of distance based scoring nor the band/multiplier distribution.  I think that the new rules will modify how rovers operate which will lead to fewer overall Q's and reduced activity.  With distance scoring, as a rover, why would I bother with making short ~ 10km 223 FM Q's or 10GHz bounce shots off of downtown.  One may even question as to why they should mess around with 222 and 432 (due to their low multipliers of 2 and 1).  The key to "winning" with the new rules is to load up on those higher multiplier bands, find a well equipped fix station to work, and then drive out ~ 300km to a grid corner and make four Q's per band from the grid corner with that one station.  For example, if I take 902 through 10 GHz, that would be:

902:  (300km x 4 x 4) = 4,800
1296:  (300km x 4 x 2) = 2,400
2304:  (300km x 4 x 6) =  7,200
3456:  (300km x 4 x 10) = 12,000
5760:  (300km x 4 x 10) = 12,000
10G:  (300km x 4 x 6) = 7,200

45,600 pts from 24 Q's with just one station.   If I then drive to another four grid corner at about the same distance and do it again, I double this to 91,200 pts from 48 Q's with one station.  

In comparison, under the previous rules, I probably had Q's with 25 or more unique stations during a UHF contest, and where some of those Q's were short 223 FM like Q's.  My point is that with distance scoring rovers have lost the incentive for short distance Q's, something that led to a lot of (fun) local activity.  As a rover I don't see a good (contesting) reason to have a local activity hour nor 223/446 activity/capability for what would be maybe ~ 1,000 pts.  A caveat to this is if there is tropo during the contest where long 222/432 (and up) contacts could be made into populated areas.   The good news is that the contest is back in August.  

On topic number two, with these changes in the August UHF rules, we need to consider what NLRS wants to do with the August UHF Limited Rover Award.  See http://www.nlrs.org/home/contest-activities/august-uhf-contest/nlrs-limited-rover-award for the rules.  This award was established by the NLRS in 2007 to promote the little-gun, 3 bands or less rover and was a predecessor the ARRL's Limited Rover category.   I am all ears with suggestions as to what we may want to do with this award now that the rules have changed.   The possibilities range from sun-setting the award, to suspending it, to modifying it to match its original intent with the updated rules.  We will look to address this question at our NLRS business meeting at Aurora '17 next April, but I am all ears right now as to suggestion/discussions.

73, Jon
W0ZQ/R