[SCCC] Field Day - Please help out the locals

[Steve Harrison]

On 6/23/2024 10:52 PM, Ryan Huggins wrote:
> Dino,
>
> ......If that rule went into effect I suspect they'd need to change
> the exchange then to spell out what your station class is prior to
> making the contact.  Otherwise there would be a lot of people upset at
> the wasted time and I'd suspect that would have a significant impact
> on the alpha site scores too, as I'd imagine that if you had to go
> through the exchange just to find out you can't count it, that would
> upset a LOT of people, myself included.

Prior to 2020 when that rule was invoked due to COVID. there were VERY
few D stations... and even fewer Es. Ds working Ds happened so
infrequently that you simply counted such a Q similar to having worked a
dupe and moved on; nobody ever got upset about working a "doesn't count"
D when you, yourself were a D. In all the years that I operated 40m CW
with W6TRW, I doubt I ever worked more than a half dozen Ds per year and
Es were almost unheard of. (Of course, these days, with affordable
LiFePO4 batteries, solar panels, etc., it's a LOT easier to be a class E
than it ever was before. Had I operated FD this year from home, I would
have been 1E.)

If they'd get rid of that rule, then there would once again be many
fewer people operating FD from home; problem solved.

> So you know what my experience is, the three clubs in Ventura County
> had 41 stations setup between them, which is the same number of
> stations we put together county-wide last year.  The club I belong to,
> The Conejo Valley ARC was the largest (likely in the country... again)
> as a 21 Alpha.
Omi... it was the Conejo club that beat the all-time record that SCCC
old-timers set back in the '80s! I have no idea whether Conejo's "new"
record has been eclipsed by now, but most likely it has.
> .............Last year three of the top six scoring clubs in the
> nation........
And the ARRL insists that Field Day is NOT a contest... yet almost
everybody serious about FD is in it for their club's bragging rights!  8-D
> ....... were right here in Ventura County.  I do not say this to brag,
> but to illustrate that we have a very robust Field component and
> participation out here.  Our club was not hurting for people to
> operate stations and there were only a couple of B or D stations in
> operation out here.
The Southern California DX Club, as well as SCCC itself, would be MOST
interested in learning just how you folks have managed to not only keep
your membership count so high, but also keep the competitive spirit up
there! Both SCDXC and SCCC need infusion of guys who have the gumption
to compete these days. Unfortunately, both organizations seem to be
primarily composed, today, of gray- and white-haired retired old geezers
who've been playing radio since the 1960s and 70s (I know: I'm onna
them), and are all but burned out nowadays. Heck's Bells: just today, I
received an e-mail warning that without people stepping up to volunteer
for any of the half dozen officer positions in our next election, the
SCDXC will likely dissolve itself after December of this year, closing
out a 73-year career. In the olden days, SCDXC, alone, used to have a
dozen, sometimes two dozen scores for most of the larger contests.
Today, nobody bothers to contribute to SCDXC's club score, and SCCC is
lucky to exceed a half dozen scores for the CQ WW, sometimes the ARRL
DX, and the CQ WW WPX, as well as the CQP. Of course, the fact that
digital QSOs now count the same as CW for DXCC has a lot to do with that
burnout, as does the fact that just about everybody who's anybody in the
SCDXC is already on the DXCC Honor Roll, and thus has very little left
to accomplish with DXing. {puts on flame suit real quick inna hurry...}
> I do not doubt that the rules have made it so that clubs are hurting
> for people for their Alpha stations, out here in my corner of the
> Santa Barbara Section it is not the case.

Why is that, do you think, Ryan? What has made the Sanata Barbara
section so robust and active?

Steve, K0XP