[SECC] Club Competition

[Randy Farmer]

Ain't it so. As one of the earliest member of the DFW Contest Group, I 
always valued most the monthly dinner get-togethers. These were NOT 
meetings in the sense of officer's reports, etc. but instead just a 
bunch of hams sharing food and drink in a public place. Due to the 
extended geographic area of the DFW area and the horrendous traffic, we 
actually had two separate gatherings, one for the greater Dallas/Plano 
area and one for the Fort Worth area. I attended the Fort Worth group 
gathering. Sometimes we had around a dozen attendees and even a newbie 
or two and sometimes we only had three or four of the old timer hardened 
contesters. Whatever, we always had an enjoyable time sharing details of 
current projects, technical talks, or maybe just swapping radio and 
other kinds of war stories.

When I was preparing to move to North Carolina I was glad to see that a 
couple of local groups of DXers had similar gatherings. I greatly looked 
forward to attending these on a regular basis. I had the great 
misfortune of making my relocation move just in time for everything to 
get shut down by the virus pandemic, so right now my only "social" 
outlet has become the computer screen. It just ain't the same. There's 
just no good substitute for the face-to-face interaction of these kinds 
of gatherings. Of course in the current situation we just couldn't do 
them even if we wanted to.

I also remember about 30 years or more back, when the Mad River Radio 
Club had their weekly sessions on 3825? kHz. Those were always 
well-attended and kept the club members up on what everyone else was 
doing. We all have a bunch or radio capability; maybe it would be 
possible to use it to stay in touch with each other. Just a thought.

73...
Randy, W8FN

On 11/11/2020 12:05 AM, Jeff Clarke wrote:
> ... Not really sure why no one else wants to discuss contesting. I 
> remember back when I first joined SECC  I made the suggestion about 
> maybe have occasionally having in person meetings. That idea was shot 
> down by many. If you're an internet based club like we are and have 
> very little activity on the reflector and if your not willing to have 
> an occasional in person meeting that's not good.