[PaQSO] Party announcement

[Mike Coslo]

Hello all,

The 50th Anniversary of the Pennsylvania QSO party is rapidly approaching.

In my first year as chair, the goal was to have the party survive - I'm 
serious. Year two goal was to have everything finished by April 15th.
Now we move to year three.

I had promised everyone that I would be making changes to bring the 
party into the 21st century, and we are doing just that. The changes 
will take place over a 2 year period. Those that do not involve software 
rewrite are implemented now, and changes that involve scoring changes - 
such as universal 2 point CW QSOs -  will be implemented next year.

Altogether, the task was more delicate than it might seem at first, 
given the need to update the party, yet keep the friendly spirit of the 
party.

to wit:

The rules have been rewritten in response the requests for more 
definition and clarity. Stations have been defined. Bands have been 
defined. The rules are a lot bigger than they used to be.

A class has been added - multi-multi portable. While they have been 
allowed to operate in the contest in previous years, they have not been 
allowed to compete.

A 20 meter "good neighbor" plaque has been added to promote having more 
stations to work out of state Ops.

We are dispensing with the results and announcement mailings. While I 
wrestled with this one a bit, there are some advantages. The party 
results were finished over a month before the mailers went out. The new 
rules would have added 7 more pages to the mailing, and the expenses 
were adding up, as well as the size. With PDFs being almost universal, 
we decided that it was time. We will be emailing the party package to 
people from our database.

Unfortunately, inflation has caught up to our promotional items, such as 
the mugs and T-shirts, so there has been a small price increase for 
those items.

On the administrative side, the party is appointing a T-Shirt czar to do 
the ordering and shipping of the shirts and mugs. This will allow those 
items to be processed at the same time as the logs are being done. This 
will get everyone's items to them sooner, and to hopefully eliminate 
some of the confusion that has cropped up at times.

More delegation is taking place, with the addition of a financial person 
to get that part of the work out of my "hair".

The website is going to be more important than it was in the past. 
supplies and updates will be announced there, as well as on this reflector.

http://www.nittany-arc.net/paqso.html

is the home page

http://www.nittany-arc.net/entryforms.htm

is where you can download the new rules and other stuff.

http://www.nittany-arc.net/paqsorules.htm

if you want to look at the rules not in pdf form.

   I will be out of town this week, and checking the email is not at all 
certain. So read and see what has been done. Aside from the price 
increases, most everything has been done to clarify issues and to make 
the party a more pleasant experience for all, both the partyer, and the 
people that put it together.

 - 73 de Mike KB3EIA -