NCCC (Northern California Contest Club)
How often has the complaint been made by the "in the know", powerful
contesters, that the ARRL is lame in it's presentation of contest results or
that CQ can't administer its contest awards in a competent manner. Many
times. Who made these complaints, the contest community at large with
complaints from the East, Mid-West and West coast. With some justification
the West coast, the NCCC in particular, could be smug and self righteous
since the California QSO Party (CQP) with it's awards, plaques, bottles of
wine, t-shirts and certificates far exceeded established contests. This smug
attitude is warranted no longer !
The NCCC in its presentation of the 1992 CQP has perpetuated a fraud on
the participants of the CQP, in particular the people who finished in the
top 20 (outside California). The 1992 announcement for the contest
advertised that the top 20 would receive a bottle of wine, each section
winner would receive a certificate and that the top 3 finishers outside
California would receive a award placque. To date none of the advertised
items have been presented to the winners of the contest. Even something as
simple as the results had to be obtained by extraordinary efforts and money
spent on long distance telephone calls.
It would be easy to write off the 1992 CQP as another situation of
typical amateur incompetence, but the CQP is run by the NCCC with such
renowned amateur radio personalities such as N6ST, W6ISQ, N6TR, AA6KX and
WN4KKN. Amateurs that are our "leaders" in contesting. However, this can't
be written off as mere incompetence. After obtaining the results of the
contest, it was observed that the out of state plaques were sponsored by
people outside of the NCCC. It can only be assumed that those amateurs
sponsoring these plaques provided funds for the sponsorship. I wonder if
these donors know what the status of their plaque dontaion is ? Who received
these plaques and when they were sent out ? That question still remains a
mystery ! This certainly leads to a conclusion of the CQP being a scam or a
fraud on the amateur contesting community.
On the flip side, if you operated this contest from California you were
in luck. Information provided through the "Grape Vine" has indicated that
there was no shortage of plaques, bottles of wine or certificates to the
winners in California. Apparently the CQP is run for the benefit of the
California stations and not the contest community in general as advertised.
The 1993 CQP is only weeks away. If this is how the NCCC is going to
run the advertised awards portion then the 1st (KE9I) and 3rd (AJ9C) place
finishers of the 1992 CQP (outside California) will not be participation in
1993. In fact we will be recommending to all out of state operators and
members of the Society of Midwest Contesters to boycott the CQP contest
until such a time as the advertised awards are delivered to all the
appropriate winners. It is our hope that these drastic measures will not
need to be implemented. It is high time for the NCCC to live up to its
advertised contesting award obligations.
I can be reached by telephone at 219-845-8513 evenings or on internet
at jerryke9i@delphi.com. Please address comments directly to me or through
the contest reflector.
X
Gerard Jendraszkiewicz, KE9I
Michael Kasrich, AJ9C
cc: MDXPA (Midwest Packet Cluster)
Black Hole (Society of Midwest Contesters news letter)
ARRL (QST Contest desk)
|