[UK-CONTEST] BERU

[Peter Hobbs]

"Unfortunately, I fear that
nostalgia for a vanished world is not necessarily
sufficient reason for the retention of this contest.

73 Roger
VE3ZI/G3RBP"

Well Roger, if you (of all people) are having such thoughts, I got to
thinking there's not much hope for us and so I checked back to my first beru
entry in 1958.  Not so many participants from those days were apparent at
the weekend - I spotted G3LHJ, VE1EP and G2BLA (doing especially well I
thought).  There may be one or two more I missed, but not many (e.g. anyone
know if ZL2JKY is ex-G3JKY, a regular entrant from that era?).  The point is
that the total HP and LP entry in '58, when The Empire was still largely in
full swing (even including a log from DL2) was 143 souls.  Compare this to
173 last year, the vast majority of whom will have taken up beru AFTER it
became a so-called anachronism.  Let's just continue to enjoy it's unique
flavour and
start to worry when (if) the entry dips towards 21/28Mc contest levels.

Incidentally, apropos of Andy oeg's comment, I see the report "in them days"
often included a synopsis of call areas worked each hour by band from the
UK.  This could still play a part in kindling the interest of potential
entrants who may have missed Gerry's piece and would be a lot less effort to
extract today than when it was a question of wading through a raft of paper
logs.

Peter G3LET