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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