[CQ-Contest] FW: [UK-CONTEST] CQ magazine to withdraw contest sponsorship?

[Paul J. Piercey]

I saw this on the UK reflector and thought I should share it here.

Very unsettling indeed.


73 -- Paul VO1HE 



-----Original Message-----
From: uk-contest-bounces at contesting.com
[mailto:uk-contest-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of Clive Whelan
Sent: April 1, 2007 10:23
To: uk-contest at contesting.com
Subject: [UK-CONTEST] CQ magazine to withdraw contest sponsorship?

I thought uk contesters might be interested in the following from a meeting
between the CEO of CQ magazine and the general manager of ARRL, reported in
the Washington Post. I am personally saddened by this news.

" CQ magazine has sadly decided to withdraw support from all the contests it
currently sponsors. As well as the huge amount of adjudication work
undertaken by our band of willing volunteers, they have recently been the
recipients of an increasing volume of complaints about conditions, sometimes
virile, and occasionally abusive. In the current sunspot minimum conditions
entrants around the world have typically been unable to make few if any QSOs
on 28Mhz, and even 21Mhz has been very patchy. We are puzzled that the
Amateur Radio community does not seem to realise that CQ magazine has little
control over  conditions, despite state of the art "ionosphere warming"
equipment and antennas installed at Hicksville N.Y. However, it does seem
that CQ magazine has become negatively associated with these poor
conditions, and our circulation has suffered as a consequence. While other
magazines might  be happy with such a scenario, CQ magazine does not wish to
be associated with anything except the highest quality , both of technical
articles, but also the results of the contests it sponsors.
Therefore, effective 4/1/2007 CQ magazine withdraws entirely from its
contest sponsorship. We are anxious to point up that this is purely a matter
of suspension rather than termination, and the board of CQ magazine will
review this decision in 3-5 years time, and hopes to reinstate all events at
this time, subject to sufficient solar activity.
Finally, we envision a bright future for contesting in the long term"

The full text of the conversation may be seen at :

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?node=admin/registration/register&de
stination=login&nextstep=gather&application=reg30-liveonline&applicationURL=
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/liveonline/?nid%253Droll_discus
s

73


Clive
GW3NJW

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