Vanity contest (was: pse/tu)

[BK1ZX70SFL at aol.com]

I thought the break in contest should be SS CW, and everyone should try their
new call out by calling me then!

? - the ham formerly known as k1zx

>From 0006008716 at mcimail.com (Doug Grant)  Sun Sep 22 02:47:00 1996
From: 0006008716 at mcimail.com (Doug Grant) (Doug Grant)
Date: Sat, 21 Sep 96 20:47 EST
Subject: Club Loyalty(?)
Message-ID: <82960922014728/0006008716DC6EM at MCIMAIL.COM>

I read N6IG's post with some historical interest.

Many years ago, I had to make the choice between operating with a rig borrowed
from a member of one club who demanded that I submit the score for his club OR
not operating, and thus contributing a zero score to the club which I was more
active in.

I chose to take the rig and operate.

As a result, several things happened.

1. Club of the rig loaner got a nice score added to their total.
2. "My" club got a zero score from me.
3. "My" club was in a different class than the club that got the score.
4. "My" club invoked an arcane rule left over from a founders' feud that
required any member who submitted a score for another club to be thrown out
of the club, and threw me out.

This was a fairly uncomfortable experience for a lot of people, not just me. I
was forced to choose between loyalty to a club (none of whose members offered
to loan me a rig, BTW) where I had a lot of friends and a club where I had
a fwe friends (a local club) and a chance to operate.

I actually think it was more unpleasant for the other guys than it was for me.

The guys in one club felt guilty about having to throw me out.

The guys in the other club found out that they had gotten my score by what
amounted to blackmail ("rigmail"?), and were bummed.

As for me, I had a ball in the contest. Somehow these debates about who gets
a guy's score manage to leave out the main reason for the contest, which is
(I think) to get on the air and have fun working guys real fast.

Anything that complicates that too much or gets in the way seems like it's 
missing the point. ANd people who bend the rules to form "paper clubs" are
probalby spending too much time on that kind of crap to have fun working guys
and I have no desire to become one of them.

Jim - tell both clubs that you're gonna operate from wherever you feel like
operating, and let them figure out the rest. If you sit out the contest for
this sort of idiocy, you're the one suffering the most.

Sorry this rambled a bit, but having experienced being thrown out of a club
for something like this, I can identify with some of your feelings.

By thw way, the only other guy ever thrown out of this club was a guy who was
convicted of breaking and entering (he broke into a ham station and stole
everything...). Somehow, giving a score to another club seemed rather less
criminal to me...

Doug  K1DG

p.ss. Neither of the clubs referred to above was the YCCC.