[UK-CONTEST] BERU

[Ian White GM3SEK]

Peter Hobbs wrote:
>"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.
>

Sorry, but by then it's far too late.

>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.
>

This contest has a unique 'edge', that it's an opportunity for 
Commonwealth stations to work some quite rare DX in a relaxed atmosphere 
and without the usual EU/W/JA competition.

A lot could be done with better publicity about that - to use the DXing 
opportunities to lure more stations on, which then floats the boat for 
the more serious competitors.

1. Gerry's piece was brilliant! If next year it appeared in Tim's March 
column (with a mention by Don as well), that would wake up a lot of the 
newer Gs. They have more to gain than anyone else... and there's also a 
lot more of them.

2. Some months ahead of that, a carefully written press release to the 
DX correspondents of the major Commonwealth magazines. Not just "Please 
remind your readers about BERU" but writing the whole thing out and 
taking care to make the key points: it isn't about the Empire and ex-Gs 
any more; and everybody can work some rare stuff with much less 
competition.

3. Now about that rare DX we just promised everybody...
Well, that has to be a case of "Build the interest, and they will come."



-- 
73 from Ian GM3SEK