[SCCC] Geographic center?

[Bruce Horn]

In a separate e-mail Marty, N6VI, wrote:
>There seems to be a "sweet" spot just north of Big Bear that appears to 
>include Lone Pine, Las Vegas, San Diego, Santa Barbara, and Yuma AZ, all 
>active SCCC areas, as well as all of Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura,and 
>Riverside Counties. If that's our spot, we seem to have no problem.  If 
>not, who would we cut out by redefining it?

Marty's right. The intersection of 175-mile radii from Santa Barbara, Yuma 
and Las Vegas produces an SCCC "triangle" located in the Big Bear area.

The geographic center used in the past for the SCCC was south and west of 
this location because the goal was to include both Yuma, Arizona (K6LL, 
W7WW) at the extreme southeast, and members who lived along the central 
coast above Santa Barbara (for example in Santa Maria). Unfortunately, we 
could/can not include both Yuma and Nipomo (N6WS) simultaneously. If want 
to include southwestern Nevada (Las Vegas and Henderson), then we will 
exclude most of the area west and north of Santa Barbara (for example Santa 
Maria).

However, I believe the ARRL is about to refine the process by which we 
designate those members' scores that will contribute to the club totals for 
ARRL-sponsored contests, so this is a good time to revisit the specified 
club center. To help members evaluate different possibilities, I created a 
web page with an interactive map:
http://www.hornucopia.com/sccccenter.html

The map shows the Santa Barbara/Las Vegas/Yuma "triangle" and allows you to 
draw a 175-mile radius circle centered at any point you click on. You can 
use the zoom and pan features of the map to see what your circle 
includes/excludes down to the individual street/house level. Give it a try 
and report back to the SCCC reflector with your suggestion of a club center.

Unfortunately, the interactive map will only be visible and functional in 
modern browsers such as Firefox, IE and Safari. I'm not sure if it will 
work with Opera.

73 de Bruce, WA7BNM   (bhorn at hornucopia.com)