A rover is a mobile station that travels during a contest to activate multiple geographic locations (typically grid squares) during the course of a contest. Rover stations are especially common in VHF contests, and often involve sophisticated setups that can activate multiple bands as well as high profile (elevation) locations. Rovers can make the contest more fun for everyone by making more multipliers available and, thus, adding to contest scores. The so-called “captive” rover refers to a rover whose express purpose is to work only a single competitor. The ethics of this variant to the rover concept is dubious at best.
Check out this great blog from Sean, KX9X, about State QSO Parties and how to participate as a rover. use of a rover in
