DXpeditions - count em or not

[BK1ZX70SFL at aol.com]

Hams are a truly fickled crowd. And always bitching.

In my quarter century plus of hamming, and a full lifetime of ham radio
exposure, I have noticed one thing is always true.

CONTESTERS are never happy with change, and never are very good at
instigating it either. 

When I moved to Florida and finally got settled I tried being CAC rep for the
Southeastern Division for about three years.  During those three years I saw
all the input to the CAC and years before during my time at ARRL in the
contest department I saw that same input. It is diddly squat.

During my tenure on the CAC the average number of pieces of mail from the
Southeastern Division was 5 (mebbe 6) and half of those were about Field Day
which isn't even a contest (don't start....read the rules....it ain't!).
Another one or two were off the wall suggestions by guys who were in another
world - usually regarding the VHF spectrum, and then there was the one letter
a year worth honouring with more than a cursory response. Those are pieces of
mail per YEAR!

In my 25 years of hamming, as a member of a number of different clubs, when
it came to the always ongoing comparisons being made between the CQ WW and
the ARRL DX one of the shortfalls of the ARRL which was always cited was the
fact that the club members who went abroad to have bigtime fun contesting
ended up "hurting" their club. 

The ARRL has now allowed those DXpeditioners' scores to count and now there
is whining and concern that this will hurt the smaller clubs who just don't
have the resources for this kind of an exercise. 

Others have more eloquently than myself shown here that the act of
DXpeditioning for a contest weekend is NOT something only wealthy types pull
off.....

Look at KA9FOX - he is still a relative youngster, a couple of years ago he
was hopping South to taste the DXpeditioning waters and as of this year I
would say he has ensconced himself as having it pretty much so down pat!

Scott, 'FOX, is from the Black hole....not YCCC....not FRC...not PVRC....not
NCCC. 

Summary - you don't have to have a big club to sponsor such an expedition!
And if you loose to a team that sent someone to an island-just bitch about it
after the contest....."yeah, we would have won local if we had sent a guy
down to the Carribean, like (fill in the name of the club that kicked your
club's butt here) did"

Get real....this insistance on more and more categories and sub-categories is
SO stupid - when will you guys figure out that IT DOESN'T MATTER!  

Anyone who truly is interested in who won and why will be knowledgable enough
to spot something like a contribution by a DXpedition and also smart enough
to follow that through to knowing just how much the landlocked locals put in!
 Sometimes the whining about not enough categories sounds like my 2 year old
grandson when he is told he has to go bed because it is late - his response:
crying....grow up guys....if you done good your peers recognize it.....or do
you think we only know the guys who have pictures in the writeups are the big
guns????

Jim  K1ZX

(formerely W A 1 No Nomex Contester!)