{"id":34,"date":"2016-04-06T14:19:14","date_gmt":"2016-04-06T20:19:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mrrcwp.madriverradioclub.org\/?p=34"},"modified":"2016-04-06T14:40:29","modified_gmt":"2016-04-06T20:40:29","slug":"mad-river-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madriverradioclub.org\/index.php\/2016\/04\/06\/mad-river-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Mad River History"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jim Stahl, K8MR<\/strong>
\n(Reprinted from the April, 1985 MRRC\u00a0Flash<\/em>)<\/strong>
\nWith minor updating by K8CC<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the beginning there was the Potomac Valley Radio Club and the Frankford Radio Club.\u00a0 In radio contests, they would compete against each other, and when it was all over they would congratulate each other, and say it was good.<\/p>\n

Over the years, FRC drifted away from domestic contests and toward DX contests.\u00a0 Murphy’s Marauders was born and took on the job of providing competition for PVRC.\u00a0 It was still all simple, and it was good.<\/p>\n

In the spring of 1970, at the urging of people from the other side of the country, the ARRL Board of Directors voted to extend the limits for club territories in Affiliated Club Competitions to 175 miles.\u00a0 The Atlantic Division director was not sure that this was good, and asked to be recorded as voting against.\u00a0 The July 1970 issue of QST announced this change, with the Operating News column including examples hypothetical such as a New York City club which could cover from Baltimore to Boston.<\/p>\n

Living in the center of Ohio was Dick Bennett, K8EHU (now K8MZ).\u00a0 He looked at what the new radius would cover in his neighborhood.\u00a0 He also considered what might be covered by careful location of the center of this 175 mile radius circle.\u00a0 With a paper cutout and a Gulf road map, he discovered that it would cover such cities as Detroit, Indianapolis, Louisville, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh and Cleveland.<\/p>\n

At the Dayton Hamvention\u00ae\u00a0in 1971, K8EHU approached various “big gun” contesters about forming a club covering such an area.\u00a0 On Saturday morning, April 24, 1971, a group of a dozen or so contesters ate breakfast together at the VJ Pancake House, across the street from the Dayton Sheraton hotel (later the Biltmore Towers, then Stouffer’s, and today known as the Dayton Crowne Plaza hotel) which was the downtown hamfest hotel in those days (and still is).<\/p>\n

Over pancakes and eggs, the contesters decided to go ahead with the proposed club.\u00a0 Naturally, the question arose of what to call the club?\u00a0 The Ohio-Michigan-Indiana-Kentucky-West Virginia-Pennsylvania-Ontario Contest Club somehow didn’t make it.\u00a0 Where again was the club center?\u00a0 No, the Wapakoneta Radio Club wouldn’t do either.\u00a0 What’s this river running through Western Ohio?\u00a0 The Mad River?\u00a0 Sold!\u00a0 The group also decided to make the 1971 Sweepstakes their first serious effort in the Affiliated Club Competition, elected K8EHU the first “Big Fish”, and then left to go forth, multiply, and search for flea market bargains…<\/p>\n

The first club membership list, published in the second issue of the\u00a0Flash<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0listed 36 members including (with today’s callsigns) N4AR, K5TM, K7GM, K7NHV, KU7U, N8AA, K8BPX, K8MZ, WB8EUN, K8IA, W8KIC (sk), K8MR, K8NZ, NA8V, W8WPC, N9RV and K8RR (sk).\u00a0 Each subsequent issue of the\u00a0Flash<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0listed more new members.\u00a0 The weekly net on 75 meters was bustling with activity.\u00a0 By SS time the club roster had grown to 154 members.\u00a0 Needless to say, during the Sweepstakes weekends the bands were filled with the sound of “GO MAD RIVER!” as members greeted each other.\u00a0 Naturally, all this caught the attention of the PVRC and Murphy’s.\u00a0 When the SS dust settled, it was a close finish with MRRC out in front.\u00a0 As the\u00a0Flash<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0put it:<\/p>\n

“The SS results have not been taken well on the East Coast, especially by many of Murphy’s members.\u00a0 It has also been reported that many PVRC members do not like our victory, but have generally accepted the situation like the sportsmen and gentlemen they have long been respected for.\u00a0 On the other hand, some of Murphy’s members are very bitter and acting very frustrated.\u00a0 However, we expected this reaction.”<\/p>\n

Murphy’s did protest.\u00a0 The SS results were published in the May 1972 QST with MRRC first with 9,960,874 points from 174 entries, with K7NHV operating from the MSU club station, W8SH winning both modes.\u00a0 PVRC took second with 8.79 million points from 133 entries, and Murphys’ was third with 7.36 million points from 116 entries.\u00a0 The MRRC line score contained the infamous asterisk, indicating that the validity of the entry was in question and would be determined later.\u00a0 There was much haggling back and forth with ARRL HQ over whether certain MRRC members were indeed within the 175 mile radius, and whether needed to have any in-person meetings at all (the rules at that time said nothing on this topic).\u00a0 A QST “Stray” in the June 1972 issue announced that the MRRC had been disqualified, and the club gavel went to PVRC.<\/p>\n

K8CC addendum: “One of the other controversies raised about MRRC’s 1972 SS club entry is that new members were being recruited to join the club during the contest(s), in order to contribute their score to MRRC.\u00a0 While this did not violate any rules in place at the time, it certainly contributed to the discussions at the ARRL which led to the “four in-person meetings per year” requirement which wasn’t instituted until much later (see below).”<\/em><\/p>\n

At a Mad River dinner the following Spring at Dayton, the then ARRL President W2HD attempted to soothe feelings, but instead managed to give one of the better “foot-in-mouth” performances in recent times.\u00a0 He told the club that as an experienced contester himself, he knew that “when Murphy strikes,\u00a0 Murphy strikes hard”.\u00a0 But MRRC already knew…<\/p>\n

MRRC submitted a much smaller entry in the 1972 Sweepstakes, but it was ignored.\u00a0 No specific rules for club entries were adopted until 1974 a requirement for four in-person meetings per year as instituted.\u00a0 By 1975, interest in MRRC was again bubbling up, based around holding the four meetings at popular hamfests within MRRC territory.\u00a0 Prompted by K8MR and K8NZ, a reorganization meeting was held at the ARRL Great Lakes Division convention in October 1975.\u00a0 By the time of the 1976 Dayton Hamvention\u00ae,\u00a0 the club was back to full strength.\u00a0 K8NZ was elected “Big Fish”, succeeding club founder K8EHU who was keeping himself busy enough with law school in the evenings.\u00a0 The club’s entry in the 1976 Sweepstakes Club Competition was accepted with no issue at ARRL HQ, taking fourth place with 3.7 million points from 42 entries.\u00a0 The 1997 ARRL DX tests were the club’s first effort in a DX contest club competition.<\/p>\n

MRRC was by then off and running, quickly becoming an active force in contesting, a legitimate contender for club awards, and frequent contest\/DXpeditions by its members.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jim Stahl, K8MR (Reprinted from the April, 1985 MRRC\u00a0Flash) With minor updating by K8CC In the beginning there was the Potomac Valley Radio Club and the Frankford Radio Club.\u00a0 In radio contests, they would compete against each other, and when it was all over they would congratulate each other, and say it was good. … Continue reading Mad River History<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madriverradioclub.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madriverradioclub.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madriverradioclub.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madriverradioclub.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madriverradioclub.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madriverradioclub.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35,"href":"https:\/\/www.madriverradioclub.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34\/revisions\/35"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madriverradioclub.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madriverradioclub.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madriverradioclub.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}