Wow. I'm almost salivating at this one. Consider the effect of a
combined NCCC and SCCC in the world of contesting, along with the
reduction of PVRC, SMC and YCCC to state-only clubs. I don't believe
anyone could compete with us (they almost can't now).
The circle is meant to allow parity between the east coast clubs,
where the states are much smaller, and us west coast guys. If the
limit were to be on state boundaries, certainly there would basically
be no competition. This would have more affect on balancing
international contests where the east coasters have the advantage of
being a direct shot into country-rich EU. But with so many stations in
California, we would still no doubt put up a very good fight,
especially if the competitors are the smaller individual east-coast
states.
Competitions that allow our members to participate from anywhere allow
us to compete in todays contests very well. It is a lot of fun to have
our members super-high Caribbean scores light up the club competition
in a contest. Perhaps there is merit to allowing folks participate
from anywhere. Of course it could also lead to elitist clubs made up
of only the best contesters. Rules that would discourage "elite-only"
clubs would need to be considered to enhance both competition and the
growth of local clubs. I strongly believe that we are seeing excellent
growth in the contest community because of the existence of the
contest clubs. The emergence of new state-wide (in many cases) contest
clubs has been a very good thing in our hobby, and has done a lot to
contribute to our overall growth. Growth means new contesters, whom
our top contesters need to mentor to give them new competition!
I _would_ like to see the circle open up a bit, though. There are
parts of the state of California that are within the NCCC area where
members are not allowed to contribute to club scores. This is very
similar to the Arizona situation. It is a shame that these folks
cannot contribute to our score. In many cases they live literally a
few hundred feet outside the club circle. Like our friends in AZ, I
would really like to see them brought into our competition. It not
only enhances the score, but camaraderie within the club as these
contesters feel like they really are first-class members.
73!
Jack Brindle, W6FB
President, Northern California Contest Club
On Apr 8, 2011, at 10:09 AM, bobk8ia@aol.com wrote:
> As one who was directly involved in the recent (June 2009) formation
> of the
> Arizona Outlaws Contest Club, I believe its time for me to weigh in.
>
> Essentially we are in the same boat as VE3CX mentions re Ontario. His
> comments are below. Also included are LU5DX's original email.
>
> Arizona, in land area, is one of the largest U.S. States. At about
> 114K
> square miles (295 sq km), we rank 5th in the continental USA. Only
> TX, CA, MT
> and NM are larger (and AK of course). To put this in a "east coast
> perspective", we are larger than the combined land areas of MA, VT,
> NH, NJ, CT,
> DE, RI plus(!) NY.
>
> Or, from another slant, AZ is larger than NY+ PA or NY + IL.
>
> I could go on and on with scenarios but my point is, AZ has a lot of
> land
> area and only a minor league "population center" as far as
> contesting goes.
> Phoenix area has some concentrated activity, Tucson a bit too, but
> onlyspotty activity throughout the remainder of the state. Frankly,
> the 275km CQ
> Circle rule doesn't satisfy us at all.
>
> When we started the Arizona Outlaws Contest Club, it was clear that,
> because of the wide area of our membership, we would have to
> eliminate some
> members no matter how the circle was drawn. 275km just isn't enough
> to encompass
> the state. As of now, there are 8 members, in the northern part of our
> state, who fall outside our circle. Of these 8, four are active
> contesters.
>
> Anyhow, I just wanted to communicate the perspective of a western US
> based
> contest club. The present circle requirement is brutal to serving our
> members. I am certain we are not alone.
>
>
>
> 73, Bob K8IA, President
> Arizona Outlaws Contest Club
> Club Call; N7AT
> Website: _www.arizonaoutlaws.net_ (http://www.arizonaoutlaws.net/)
>
>
>
>
>
> -----------------
>
> Date: Thu, 7 Apr 2011 21:43:36 -0400
> From: Tom Haavisto <kamham69@gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Club/Group competition 275 km radius in CQ
> Contest (petition for change).
> To: Joe <nss@mwt.net>
> Cc: cq-contest@contesting.com
> Message-ID: <BANLkTinn76ig9AdcMF=5LL0BU5=gt1WSKg@mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> Hi Joe
>
> In your part of the world, this is probably true. However, where I
> live, there is myself and another active contester. The rest of the
> contest club we belong to is about 1,000 miles away, yet we all live
> in the province of Ontario. For ARRL contests where they use ARRL
> sections, our scores are included as part of the club total. In
> contests where the circle is used, we don't get added in. The same
> could be said for all Canadian provinces, and a number of U.S. states
> as well.
>
> This is just an example - many parts of the world also fall into
> similar type issues of widely dispersed individuals. They all
> share a
> common interest, and are part of one club, and meet whenever they
> can.
> At the same time, we also need some type of limits so we don't end up
> with a small number of "super clubs", which defeats the idea that the
> circle was meant to fix.
>
>
> Tom - VE3CX
>
> On 4/6/2011 4:16 PM, Martin Monsalvo, LU5DX wrote:
>> Hi guys.
>>
>> We started a petition to ask the organizers of CQ Contest to
>> review the
> 275
>> Km radius rule (Club/Group) competition.
>> We have been allowed by the organizers to submit our contest
>> scores to
> our
>> clubs/groups for eleven years now, but we really feel it is time
>> for a
>> change.
>>
>> This rule was originally written back in 1948 when these
>> competitions
>> started and certainly the wording took into account the situation
>> of the
> US
>> based Clubs.
>>
>> There are countries outside USA and Europe where the territory is
>> really
>> vast and the ham population is very little. Our members feel
>> encouraged
> to
>> enter contests even if it is ocassionally if they are allowed to
>> submit
>> their scores to our Club/Groups, and we really believe that being
>> these
>> competitions world wide events, the situation of other regions
>> needs to
> be
>> considered.
>>
>> There are several options e.g.:
>> Remove the geographic limitation completely, thus, allowing
>> members of
> each
>> Club to submit their scores to their club, no matter if they have
>> moved
>> temporarily or permanently.
>> Keep this geographic limitation as it is for the US and Western
>> Europe
>> countries and remove it for the rest of the world, and so on.
>>
>> If you feel like signing the petition you can do so at:
>> http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/275km/
>>
>> Thanks in advance for getting involved.
>>
>>
>> Regards!
>>
>>
>
>
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