• Historical information
• Photos of the September, 2003 contest
• Photos of the January, 2004 VHF SS
• Photos of the June, 2004 high plains expedition
• Photos of the January, 2005 VHF SS
• Photos of the January, 2006 VHF SS
• Photos of the January, 2007 VHF SS
• Photos of the January, 2009 VHF SS

     Ever since the advent of the Maidenhead grid square multiplier system in amateur radio, "roving" (or "rovering" if you wish), has been popular. 
   Under the Maidenhead plan (so named because it was developed at a conference in Maidenhead, England), the world is divided into geographic units one degree of latitude high and two degrees of longitude wide.  Rovers travel to various grid squares during VHF/UHF radio contests.  What they do is akin to a road rally with amateur radio equipment aboard, and it has enormous appeal to people who might not otherwise operate a VHF contest. 
   Some amateurs spend months planning an itinerary that will take them on a 1200-mile trek through 20 or more grid squares during a contest.  And rovers have dramatically increased the activity level in sparsely populated areas, while providing otherwise unavailable multipliers to fixed contestants.  I've joined the club:  the photos here show several N6NB rover installations. 
    Although it's very popular, roving has been surprisingly controversial for several reasons.  For one, questions have been raised about rover operating practices.  Many rovers attempt to visit as many grid squares as possible, a practice encouraged by the ARRL rules (which award an extra multiplier for each grid square visited during the contest period).  That forces rovers to keep moving, never venturing far off the major highways and rarely stopping to operate with directional antennas.  If they are to visit as many grid squares as possible, rovers have no choice but to leave rare grid squares quickly and go on to grid squares that are not rare.  Some fixed operators say this makes it more difficult to contact rovers in the rare and distant grid squares that they visit, defeating one purpose of roving.  There have also been perennial complaints about two other practices:  (1) "captive" rovers seeking out only one or a few stations while they're in each grid square and making little effort to be available to the general amateur community; and (2)  "grid circling" in which two or more rovers travel together and work each other as they move around a point where four grids converge.   Some object to rovers working each other in several grid squares even if they don't engage in "grid circling."  Two rovers will often travel together and work each other only once in a given grid square (as opposed to working each other multiple times as first one then the other of them circles around a grid convergence).
    The rover scoring system has also been controversial.  The system has been revised four times, and some rovers are still not pleased with the result.    Originally, rover stations scored their activity in each grid square separately.  For a time QST magazine listed all of these separate scores and didn't separate out rovers from single operators. The separate scores were very low compared to single operator scores, even if all of a station's scores were added up.  Rovers demanded better treatment.  The response was a rover scoring system, introduced in 1991, that some have called "megascoring."  The contacts and multipliers from all locations were aggregated and the sums were then multiplied, producing much larger total scores.  Even though that produced an enormous increase in rover activity, the higher scores stirred controversy, too.
    A review of rover participation in VHF contests in the three years before and after "megascoring" was introduced illustrates just how much the recognition in QST and the new scoring opportunities increased activity.  In June, 1988, eight (8) rovers submitted logs.  In September, 1988, there were 11 rover logs.  In June, 1989, 21 rover logs were submitted, with 15 submitted in September, 1989.  In June, 1990, there were 20 rover logs, with 13 in September, 1990.
     Then roving exploded, aided by the new scoring system.  In June, 1991, the first with "megascoring," there were 50 rover entries--more than double the number the previous June.  In September, 1991, there were 30 rover entries, a 50% increase from a year earlier.  In June, 1992, there were 64 rover entries--another big increase.  September, 1992, attracted 46 rover logs.  In June, 1993, there were 63 rover logs, with 62 in September, 1993--another very large increase.
    Although roving was booming, some opposed the new scoring system.
    To dramatize what they saw as the unfairness of that system, four amateurs (two father and son teams) in New England went roving in the January, 1993 VHF contest in two vehicles, working each other on nine bands as they circled around the point where four grid squares came together.  Then they did the same thing at another convergence of four grid squares.  When the contest was over, each of the four had amassed one and a quarter million points:  four people in two vehicles had scored five million points.  The highest fixed station score in that contest was about 300,000 points.  Then the four added their scores with those of fixed stations in their radio club, the Hampden County Radio Assn., creating a club aggregate score more than triple that of the perennial winner, the Mt. Airy VHF Club in Philadelphia.  The Mt. Airy Pack Rats had won the club aggregate competition every year for more than 30 years, but the rover scoring system ended that tradition.  Fixed stations simply could not compete.  A further irony was that the Rochester VHF Group, the perennial number two club in the January contest, also topped the Pack Rats that year--but got upstaged by four guys in two vehicles.  RVG's long-sought triumph in the club competition was not to be--until later.  (As QST magazine pointed out, though, RVG's club aggregate score was also boosted by high-scoring rovers.) 
   The high scoring foursome (Stan Hilinski, KA1ZE, and his son Kevin, NR1L, and Robert Cohen, K1CPJ, and his son Scott, KA1QAS) revolutionized VHF rovering--and demonstrated what was possible.  But because their monster scores overwhelmed the traditional club competition, there was an outcry for still another change in the scoring system, although many rovers defended the "megascoring" system by arguing that it made the contests a lot more fun and stimulated activity in many parts of the country.  The debate raged at club meetings and conventions, in petition-gathering efforts and on the air. 
    After several years, ARRL reached a compromise:  rovers could continue to aggregate their QSO points, but they could count each multiplier only once--with a single additional multiplier for each grid square activated.  This resulted in rover scores somewhat more comparable to those attainable by fixed stations.  However, it became clear over the years that rovers can still achieve high scores, especially when two or more rovers travel together so they all can work the rare multipliers that they are handing out to others.  By roving in tandem and sometimes circling a four-grid convergence, rovers can amass scores that only the top fixed single-operator stations can match.  This has enabled some rovers to achieve high scores even in sparsely populated areas where there are no fixed stations active on the higher bands.
     After the rules were changed a second time, just about everyone thought the scoring record set by KA1ZE's team would hold up indefinitely, but the mark only stood for six years.
     Operating under the revised scoring system, a team formed out of the legendary Grid Pirates multioperator contest group, signing N3IQ/R, scored 1,391,942 points in the 1999 VHF SS.  Operators ND3F and WD8ISK (now K8ISK) roved in tandem with K8GP/R, operated by K6LEW and KA3QPG, who posted a score of 827,372 points.  The two teams visited 15 grid squares and worked each other on an incredible 12 bands--and then set out to work everyone else they could hear in the activity-rich northeast corridor.
     Many other teams of rovers from coast to coast have achieved good scores by roving in tandem.  At least seven of the top 10 rovers in 2004 VHF SS traveled with another rover.  In recent years rovers in Eastern Washington, Western Washington, Southern California, the upper midwest, Rochester, NY and the high plains have all scored 250K or more (often much more) by roving together.
     This led to still more controversy and another major revision of the rover rules.  In 2008, ARRL added two more categories to the rover competition.  In the unlimited category, rovers may work each other freely and may even "rove" by operating at two or more fixed stations in different grid squares during the contest weekend.  Large groups may also operate together in a bus, for instance, in the unlimited category.  (The normal limit is two licensed operators.)  In the classic rover category, rovers may only work any one other rover a maximum of 100 times and may not operate from a fixed station because the rules require that the rover vehicle transport the entire station, including antennas.  A third limited rover category was added in 2008.  This is a category for rovers who operate on no more than four bands (any four bands at first) with a maximum power that is the same as in the single operator low-power category (i.e., 200 watts on six and two meters).  In 2009, the limited category was restricted to the lowest four bands in any VHF/UHF contest.    Limited rovers are allowed to work any other one rover a maximum of 100 times.
     The three-category rover system remains controversial, with some contending that rovers can still achieve excessively high scores by roving together.  Some have called for still more changes in the rover rules--even a return to the original scoring system where activity in each grid square was scored separately.  It remains to be seen how that might affect overall contest activity--and whether the resulting low scores might cause roving to revert to its original status as primarily a means by which some fixed stations could boost their scores.
    Whatever the pros and cons of the scoring system, rover operating is still popular in VHF contests.  Everyone has been doing it, including me. 
    The photos on this page show several N6NB rover stations.  The first one, built around an Isuzu 4X4, was used with good success in the late 1990s.  Its main innovation was a method of setting up relatively high directional antennas quickly.  It took not more than two minutes to go to the operating position with the antenna stack upright (top photo) from the travel position (photo above).  The mast was secured to a rotator on the rear bumper of the truck with one bolt.  When the bolt was removed, the mast tilted forward into a cradle on the truck.  Then a coaxial cable and another bolt were removed to slide the 6-meter antenna off the mast and into a rooftop cradle.    For optional high-power operation, starting a gasoline generator took another minute or so. 
    This installation worked well for someone who wanted to go to just a few grid squares and spend considerable time operating in each one, perhaps from a superior off-the-highway location.  That allowed more people to contact a few rare grid squares, but it precluded visiting 15 or 20 grid squares during a contest.  In the June, 1998 VHF contest, the N6NB/N6MU team had the top score on the west coast, but we only visited eight grid squares.
     The second rover station, in use during the 2000s, utilizes a Ford E350 15-passenger Supervan with all but the front seats removed.  Its antenna system is similar to the one on the Isuzu but with a longer mast to take advantage of the greater length of the van.  This permits excellent separation between antennas for various bands, minimizing interaction.  This rover station made its debut during the 2003 January VHF SS contest on the east coast.  The van was driven from California to the northeast and back just for the contest--a 6,500-mile trip that may rank as the longest roving expedition ever in total miles driven before, during and after the contest.  In the photo here, the van is shown at an overlook on Interstate 80 near Hackettstown in western New Jersey (FN20).  Was it worth a 6,500-mile trip?  Any dedicated amateur radio contester knows the answer to that question!  It was also a sentimental journey--N6NB/1 on Mt. Equinox, VT, set national scoring records in the June and September VHF contests as a single operator in 1979-1980.
     The photos immediately below show the N6NB/N6MU tandem roving team that had a combined score of almost 700,000 points in the 2003 September VHF contest.  One 10-band station was installed in the Ford van; another 10-band station was installed in an SUV.  One of the highlights was reaching CN90, grid #16, 10 minutes before the end of the contest.  Perhaps the low point came the night before the contest when the SUV that was earmarked to be the second rover vehicle had a transmission failure.  Starting at 9 p.m. on Friday night, John (N6MU) and I built a roof platform for his Suzuki Sidekick and moved the entire station over from the out-of-commission SUV.  We did a mini-roving expedition at 1 a.m. to test everything (it worked, making it possible to go ahead with the original contest plan).
     Further down this page there are several photos of the three-rover January, 2004 operation that produced a combined score of more than three million points, with N6MI/R, N6MU/R and N6NB/R each topping a million points.  The third 10-band station was built during the fall of 2003.  The January contest was the culmination of many months of planning and building.  There are also photos of the June, 2004 "high plains expedition," during which three 10-band stations roved through 20 grid squares ranging from Midland, TX to the Nebraska border, with N6NB setting a new June record of 1.29 million points.  Further down there are photos from the January, 2005 contest, when N6NB/R (operating with W6XD), N6ZZ/R (with N2IC) and N6MU/R (with K2MM) visited 22 grid squares in New Mexico and west Texas, scoring more than two million points each.
     Altogether, N6NB/R activated 52 grid squares and made 7,184 contacts with 590 different stations during six contests between January, 2003 and January, 2005.  Many of the stations were worked on several bands from several grid squares.

     The January, 2005 VHF contest was a memorable event for many participants.  The northern and eastern states experienced near-blizzard conditions, with impossibly high snow-induced noise levels.  Some rovers courageously went afield in this horrible weather, but the scores of both fixed stations and rovers were understandably lower than usual.  We roved in New Mexico and West Texas and experienced surprisingly good weather for January--no snow, only moderate winds, and clear skies much of the time.  We visited a total of 22 grid squares and traveled 1,000 miles during the contest, amassing three scores over two million points--the first ever to exceed two megapoints in VHF SS.  Here's the breakdown:

Call                Qs    Q pts   Mult    Score

N6NB/R (+W6XD)    2040    9098    242   2,201,716
N6ZZ/R (+N2IC)    1957    8943    242   2,164,206
N6MU/R (+K2MM)    1937    8900    242   2,153,800

     These scores are directly attributable to the talents of the seasoned contest operators who joined us for this venture.  It quickly became clear why they're so successful in HF contests.

     One of the highlights was spanning some seemingly impossible paths, working over high hills on 10 Ghz.  Another was working W5LCC 27 times from seven grid squares, including Qs on 1296 from five grid squares.  And we worked K5RHR 15 times (thanks for making Lubbock and Albuquerque so workable, guys).

It's amazing how these rover expeditions keep growing.  In January, 2007, four stations traveled together from Orange County to Arbuckle, Calif. for VHF SS.  The group included K6MI and N6NB in the Ford F-150 camper (at left), W6YLZ in the Lexus RX-330, W6TE and WA6LUT in the Subaru Baja, and KG6TOA and KI6AAY in the Ford E350 van, all shown here at the Madera convergence.
 

Miguel Ramirez, W6YLZ

Bryan Sorensen, KI6AAY (in the passenger seat), and Rob Hughes, KG6TOA

John Morrice, K6MI

Dave Smith, W6TE, with Larry Bettencourt, WA6LUT, operating in back

These rover expeditions have continued to grow as the rules evolved.  By January, 2009, we had eight complete 10-band stations available--and all eight were on the road.  W6TE (with WA6LUT part of the way) and W6YLZ were in the unlimited category in which it's both acceptable and practical to "grid circle."  In the original category, grid circling is not a good strategy (with only a limited number of QSOs allowed with any other rover, the savvy way to use those Qs is for multipliers--not to work anyone more than once in a given grid square).  We had four rovers in the original category:  AF6O/R, KK6KK/R (with KG6TOA), N6NB/R and W6XD/R (who was the top-scoring rover overall a year earlier in the 2008 VHF SS).  This time we also had a talented newcomer in the limited rover category:  Carrie Tai, now W6TAI.  So who was the eighth rover?  Well, N6TEB bought a new Ford diesel truck shortly before the contest and borrowed one of the 10-band "toolbox" stations because he hadn't yet had time to install his own excellent station in his new truck.  Dave met us at the Bissell (Mojave) convergence and worked us on 10 bands there, but he did not travel on from there with us.