[CQ-Contest] Local club radius discussion

[Jim Pratt]

There has been a great deal of discussion both at Visalia and among the 
CAC about the "need" to increase the radius of ARRL "Local clubs" for 
competition in ARRL contests.  Members of our local club, the River City 
Contesters, have come out overwhelmingly against this proposal, feeling 
there is nothing wrong with the present rules and suspecting that others 
may be tinkering with the rules for their own advantage.  I wish to 
comment on some of the issues raised in this discussion in order to bring 
this discussion out to the general contesting community, to encourage 
feedback to your CAC representatives and to spur discussion this weekend 
at Dayton.

The main argument in favor of increasing the size of the local club 
circle (currently defined as a 20-mile radius of the club's center) is 
that it is "difficult to find ten good entries within that 20 mile 
radius" for a contest.  That is certainly true, I agree.  However, it is 
my opinion, and that of our club's membership, that the ENTIRE PURPOSE of 
a local club is to promote activity and get people interested in 
contests.  We have had a hard time getting people on the air and have 
responded by getting new hams licensed, existing hams involved in our 
club, and "dormant contesters" back on the air.  In short, we have 
INCREASED PARTICIPATION in the contests.

Our club's 20-mile radius certainly doesn't take in a huge urban area 
such as San Francisco, Los Angeles or San Diego.  The Sacramento Valley 
is still relatively sparsely populated;  yet we have created a large 
number of good contesters and spurred a lot of activity.  Remember back 
15 or 20 years ago when it was hard to work SV in the Sweepstakes?  Has 
anyone missed that section in recent years?  We take a lot of credit for 
the explosion of activity in our section...

The Hudson Valley DXCC has also not had a real problem coming up with 
good entrants in local clubs, again despite living in a less-populated 
area;  another local club success story indeed!

If you don't have active contesters within a 20-mile radius, MAKE SOME!

We are also quite concerned at the potential to increase contention 
between local clubs and medium/unlimited clubs were the circle's radius 
to be increased.  Already our membership has dual members between the RCC 
and the NCCC or MLDXCC, both of which compete in the other categories.  
If it were allowed for an entrant to submit his/her score for BOTH the 
local club and either a medium or unlimited club, that would resolve this 
issue.  But the CAC (for whatever reason) has voted that proposal down in 
the past.

If the radius were increased, who would we go after for our club?  Why, 
other existing NCCC and/or MLDXCC members, of course!  Why work to create 
new members when there would be an "easy way out"?  Of course, that would 
create tension among people, cause bad feelings, etc., but hey, it would 
be SIMPLE!  ;=>

If you think we have strong opinions on this, you are correct.  If there 
is a real problem in a contest, it needs to be fixed.  Perhaps there IS 
a real problem with the lack of contesters in a 20-mile radius;  but 
there is also a great deal of discussion here on the reflector about the 
decline of contest participation in general and the aging of the contest 
population.  Let's not "fix" this "problem" with a band-aid solution.  
Who can say what is the best radius, anyway?  25 miles?  30? 40?  And who 
will stop the tinkering from year to year?  Records will lose all 
meaning and I suspect local clubs will get disillusioned.  Rather than 
front ten good entries in a given year, why not get the rules changed to 
favor your own club?  It reminds me of gerrymandering congressional 
districts...

A compromise "solution" has been suggested to this issue which I 
personally don't have a problem with.  Perhaps a new club category could 
be created between "Local" and "Medium" called "Regional".  It could have 
say 25 members within a radius of maybe 40 miles or so.  In the respect 
that it doesn't tinker with existing rules, I support it.  BUT, it will 
still have the effect of diluting other existing club's scores if 
entrants are forced to choose one and only one club for which to submit 
their score.  If an entrant could choose ANY TWO category clubs under 
whose banner her/she could submit a score, I don't see any problems.

73 and thanks for reading this.  Looking forward to seeing people at 
Dayton and discussing this further!

Jim  N6IG
President, River City Contesters



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