There has been a great deal of discussion both at Visalia and among the
CAC about the "need" to increase the radius of ARRL "Local clubs" for
competition in ARRL contests. Members of our local club, the River City
Contesters, have come out overwhelmingly against this proposal, feeling
there is nothing wrong with the present rules and suspecting that others
may be tinkering with the rules for their own advantage. I wish to
comment on some of the issues raised in this discussion in order to bring
this discussion out to the general contesting community, to encourage
feedback to your CAC representatives and to spur discussion this weekend
at Dayton.
The main argument in favor of increasing the size of the local club
circle (currently defined as a 20-mile radius of the club's center) is
that it is "difficult to find ten good entries within that 20 mile
radius" for a contest. That is certainly true, I agree. However, it is
my opinion, and that of our club's membership, that the ENTIRE PURPOSE of
a local club is to promote activity and get people interested in
contests. We have had a hard time getting people on the air and have
responded by getting new hams licensed, existing hams involved in our
club, and "dormant contesters" back on the air. In short, we have
INCREASED PARTICIPATION in the contests.
Our club's 20-mile radius certainly doesn't take in a huge urban area
such as San Francisco, Los Angeles or San Diego. The Sacramento Valley
is still relatively sparsely populated; yet we have created a large
number of good contesters and spurred a lot of activity. Remember back
15 or 20 years ago when it was hard to work SV in the Sweepstakes? Has
anyone missed that section in recent years? We take a lot of credit for
the explosion of activity in our section...
The Hudson Valley DXCC has also not had a real problem coming up with
good entrants in local clubs, again despite living in a less-populated
area; another local club success story indeed!
If you don't have active contesters within a 20-mile radius, MAKE SOME!
We are also quite concerned at the potential to increase contention
between local clubs and medium/unlimited clubs were the circle's radius
to be increased. Already our membership has dual members between the RCC
and the NCCC or MLDXCC, both of which compete in the other categories.
If it were allowed for an entrant to submit his/her score for BOTH the
local club and either a medium or unlimited club, that would resolve this
issue. But the CAC (for whatever reason) has voted that proposal down in
the past.
If the radius were increased, who would we go after for our club? Why,
other existing NCCC and/or MLDXCC members, of course! Why work to create
new members when there would be an "easy way out"? Of course, that would
create tension among people, cause bad feelings, etc., but hey, it would
be SIMPLE! ;=>
If you think we have strong opinions on this, you are correct. If there
is a real problem in a contest, it needs to be fixed. Perhaps there IS
a real problem with the lack of contesters in a 20-mile radius; but
there is also a great deal of discussion here on the reflector about the
decline of contest participation in general and the aging of the contest
population. Let's not "fix" this "problem" with a band-aid solution.
Who can say what is the best radius, anyway? 25 miles? 30? 40? And who
will stop the tinkering from year to year? Records will lose all
meaning and I suspect local clubs will get disillusioned. Rather than
front ten good entries in a given year, why not get the rules changed to
favor your own club? It reminds me of gerrymandering congressional
districts...
A compromise "solution" has been suggested to this issue which I
personally don't have a problem with. Perhaps a new club category could
be created between "Local" and "Medium" called "Regional". It could have
say 25 members within a radius of maybe 40 miles or so. In the respect
that it doesn't tinker with existing rules, I support it. BUT, it will
still have the effect of diluting other existing club's scores if
entrants are forced to choose one and only one club for which to submit
their score. If an entrant could choose ANY TWO category clubs under
whose banner her/she could submit a score, I don't see any problems.
73 and thanks for reading this. Looking forward to seeing people at
Dayton and discussing this further!
Jim N6IG
President, River City Contesters
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