[CQ-Contest] Rent-A-Shack

[Ron Notarius]

I know there are a good many domestic & DX shacks available for rental for various contest and other operations... but this one sure made me do a double-take.

My club (and I suspect others) received an email offer to operate a rental shack located about 5 hours east of us for October's PA QSO Party.  The description sure sounded nice, what there was of it (the exact location wouldn't be disclosed unless we were interested, and then only to the operators right before the contest, but I digress).  But as they say, the devil is in the details... basically:

(1)  A rental fee to use the site, fair enough, but we wouldn't be allowed to use our club call unless we paid past a certain threshold;

(2)  We would be required to permit anyone who showed up on the doorstep to operate, whether or not they were a member of our club;

(3)  Only 5 - 10 of our club members were being requested to operate, preferably those who submit low scores, or who have limited capability shacks... in short, not our top guns but our newbies and casual ops

(4)  But, they'll do all the paperwork, and even submit the score for us.

Rent a QTH is one thing.  But rent a complete operating station including operators?  With all due respect... if they're shack is so good, why aren't they operating it themselves as themselves?  Am I missing something here?

Of course, this may be a moot point, as the message was generic enough that I suspect it went out to a lot of clubs (it went so far as to tell us where one particular PA county was located... and since it's one of the two counties our membership serves, I think we knew that!) and that someone will bite.  And my club has had some good success running multiple multi op stations under our club calls, so I really can't see us being interested, anyway.

But somehow, it just don't sit right, ya know what I mean?  

It's one thing to open your club station up to anyone who wants to join you to operate.  Can be a lot of fun, and it can be a good recruiting tool for potential members, amongst many other benefits.  But this?

73, ron wn3vaw