[CQ-Contest] Club Areas and Big Cities

[Ward Silver]

> 
> > Assuming hams form a relatively constant fraction of the total population
> > across the US.  
> 
> I talked with Pete, K9PW about this in regards to VHF contests.
> The big cities form a "black hole."  Lots of people live there,
> but you couldn't figure it out from VHF contest logs.  Serious 
> VHF contesters invariably live in the small towns and suburbs. 
> I don't know of any big city in the USA with a healthy population 
> of big contest stations--Zack W1VT

Obviously lots of holes in the ham population - the averaging area just
has to be wide enough.  Most big cities are also part of a surrounding
county that has sufficient suburbs to have a decent ham population, so if
we were county-based, the assumption of ham presence is not unreasonable.
If the city is not part of the surrounding county, St. Louis comes to mind
as an example, then it would be treated as a separate county-like-object
to be included or not at the direction of the club.

There will be inequities; like the old Monty Pythonism, "And when I say
there is no cannabalism in the Royal Navy, I mean, of course, there is a
certain amount."

The suggestion has also been made by AA5B that Local Clubs be limited to
some fixed maximum number of members all within a single ARRL Section.
10, 20, something like that.  Not a bad idea, either.

73, Ward N0AX



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