[KCDXC] 1970's Mad River Radio Club "Scandal"

[Lance Johnson]

Back in the 1970's, when I was getting started in contesting as an entry level
SS type and living in Dayton, Ohio, some enterprising people formed the
"original" Mad River Radio Club.

There was a nice newsletter and the regional club had some ambitious goals,
including the winning of the ARRL Sweepstakes.

Stations were recruited from W8 and W9 land and many handwritten logs were
properly sent into the ARRL for processing with Mad River Radio Club
affiliation.

The result was that the Mad River Radio Club, in one of the greatest upsets in
the history of contesting, won the SS Club Championship that year..... for a few
months.

The sour grapes pressure from the established EAST COAST clubs was so immense
and threats to Directors so great that the ARRL disavowed the Mad River Radio
Club victory and awarded it to one of the EAST COAST regulars.

The handy vehicle the ARRL used was "meeting attendance" and later the well
defined circle game was implimented to precisely sabotage any Midwest threats to
EAST COAST dominance.

Rumor has it that the ARRL hired a demographics professional to insure that NO
MIDWEST club would ever win the SS and that's how the mileage figures were
developed at the levels you see today.

If you saved your QST's or have the QST 1970's CD ROM you can read about the
whole butt ugly episode. (They made Mad River look like idiots.)

By the way, I got my first clean sweep in that one as WB8IAY and had a
respectable 120,000 points on SSB as a tyro.

My suggestion would be to change the club name to: "Midwest Christian Hams for
Jeusus" and recruit from anywhere in ZERO District that is reasonable.

Trust me, the ARRL would NOT mess with any mileage trivia on your entry, my
fellow "religious freedom" enthusiasts!

And now you know why LANCE JOHNSON ENGINEERING has NEVER advertised in QST in 25
years of selling ham accessories.

73, Steve, K0CS

http://www.qth.com/lance
http://www.qth.com/lowband