Northern Lights Radio Society
What Is RoverMania?

RoverMania is our name for the ARRL August UHF Contest. We gave it that name because we felt that the August contest is an especially good fit for folks who want to try their hand at contest participation as a rover station.

There are a few reasons why you should consider participating in the August UHF "RoverMania" contest.

• Because the contest allows only the Amateur bands above 222 MHz, you can leave behind your big 6 meter and 2 meter antennas. This gives you more room in limited space to hang your antennas for the higher bands, and antenna mounting space is always at a premium when assembling a rover vehicle.
• Unlike the January, June, and September VHF contests sponsored by the ARRL, the UHF contest is 24 hours long, instead of 33 hours long. You can play for the entire time that the contest is running, and still have some time left over on the weekend for doing some other things.
• Participation in the August UHF contest was declining in the recent past, and the ARRL was giving active consideration to eliminating this contest. Since the NLRS has been promoting the contest under the name RoverMania, participation has started to pick up, and the UHF contest is still alive and well.
• Even if you are certain that roving is "not your cup of tea", the presence of a significant level of rover activity in your part of the country will make it much more fun and productive for the fixed stations. You should certainly consider being one of those, if you decide not to go out roving.
• If you've invested in radios, transverters, antennas, etc. for the higher bands, especially the bands higher in frequency than the 70 cm band, you probably don't give them a lot of use for casual ragchewing. The UHF contest is just one more opportunity to give those high bands a workout at a time when there are a lot of other stations on the air that are operating those bands.
• It can be a whole lot of fun, even if you don't have a large number of UHF bands available. Many rovers go out with just a few bands, and still have a great time. To encourage rovers with a limited number of bands to still go out for the contest, the NLRS is sponsoring an award for a new category of participation, called the "Limited Rover" station. This is a rover that operates on no more than 3 bands.

Last edited 2006-12-19

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the NLRS Webmaster: John, WØJT