[KCDXC] K1N - Lotw - club vs. personal contributions

[Jeff Blaine]

I've had a few guys ask me about the K1N early LoTW for the sponsors.

The discussions vary but the theme is - the KCDXC provided funding for K1N - but the club members individually who worked K1N have not benefitted from the early LoTW upload.  Could I, on behalf of the KCDXC, appeal to K1N and see if our members could get preferential treatment.

Here is my position, pulled from the most recent discussion on this topic:

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...If every club that sent in a grouped donation provided a list to the K1N guys, they would easily have thousands of callsigns to look up and arrange early LoTW confirmations for.  The KCDXC would have about 65 alone - and as the big DX clubs go, we are in the small category.  I suppose that some amount of computer list massaging would do the job if that capability exists on the dxpedition's end.  I just don't have the balls to tell those guys that they should take a list and get the loTW confirms done as part of what we expect for our couple-hundred-buck contribution.  If I were them, I would send back a message and ask "can you really be serious?"

To my thinking, the dxpeditions leaders and principles are signing huge personal financial loan guarantees and making big funding investments for what is (now) normally hundreds of thousands of dollars to put on a dxpedition.  That's on top of the time and effort and physical risk to participate.  Why they would do that in the first place is beyond my comprehension - but I'm very happy they do.  The KCDXC's support of the major and rare dexpeditions is specifically to provide a tiny bit of assistance to these groups to offset their expenses.  It's not a way to get an expedited LoTW confirmation....

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I do not mean to be harsh to our club members who's hard earned money pays the club's bills.  But it does need to be put into perspective.  About 60% of the clubs revenue each year goes toward dxpedition support.  That means about $12 of the $20 dues is being spread out to 3-4 of the most important and most rare of dxpeditions.  That comes out to $1 / month for a KCDXC member.  While every little bit helps, I do not feel it is reasonable at all to demand special privileges at our level of support when the overall bill for K1N (as an example) cost $500,000.

If an early confirmation is important to you then by far the best way to do that is to look at what the dxpedition posts as their upload reward procedure for individual donations.  And follow that procedure exactly.

73/jeff/ac0c