Well, I guess I'm not the only one with the FOC question. Lots of
messages asking me what the answer was....so in short form....
FOC=First Class Operators Club. Formed in 1938 apparently in
England (one message indicated the founder was G5RV).
Limited membership (by number), estimates range from 400 to 1600.
Membership is by invitation only. Some messages indicated a
procedure but I suspect that they were people abiding by the old
"It's more important to be definite than accurate" rule.
General assessment is that the members are in fact excellent ops
(if somewhat high speed, but then I guess that's a matter of
opinion from what I heard in the contest 25 or so seemed to be the
norm).
FYI, On saturday, I worked a couple of people trying to find out
some details on the air and while no one took a lot of time to
explain the details, no one was rude. Must be a group of
"gentlemen" (no sexism implied) as well as good ops!!
There is an "unofficial" web page at:
http://www.shore.net/~bruce/foc.htm
Glad that I wasn't the only one with the question.
73 de Bill, W1HIJ (see you saturday in the sprint)
Bill Scholz
New Century Technologies, Inc.
Newport Beach, California, USA
(714) 720-1697
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