See the message below from W6OAT, the first GQP chairman. We may want
to have some special celebration for GQP in 2012. Unfortunately, it
will not be the 51st GQP. Columbus Amateur Radio Club sponsored it for
many years. K4BVD went off to school and moved away. We had other
titled chairpersons over the years (K4RHU, K4ADU (later KR4M), K4VGI),
but it all fell to me to do the work and I finally burned out after 20
years or more. The Atlanta club (KI4Y) volunteered to take it over, but
it was never much of an event. Maybe later on the Dixie DXers may have
sponsored it for a while (N4UZ) including one joint party with Alabama
(WA4FAT). Then WB4EVH individually sponsored it for a few years. There
were no doubt some years when there was no GQP, but it never was
properly promoted and there was little activity until SECC/SEDXC took it
over beginning in 1999. But, it will still mark the 50th year since the
original GQP in 1962.
73,
John, K4BAI.
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