John (vk4cej) wrote:
> A question for you Eddie... regarding other 'faux pas'. SO far, not one
> single Canadian station that I have seen or worked has given out the
correct
> "area" exchange as per the rules. I have lots of "ON" and "BC" etc,
> none of which are technically correct... Do I edit or nor edit ???
Obviously I cannot tell you what will be acceptable to the rules committee,
but I can offer a suggestion as to why Canadian hams send their exchanges
the way they do, and I can also make a suggestion that might make the rules
clearer in this respect in future.
First, we all need to recognize that there are quite a few contests that use
"state or province" in the exchange (ARRL RTTY Roundup, ARRL DX, ARRL 10
meter, NAQP, NA Sprint, state QSO parties, ...). So, in contests where US
hams send their state, we Canadians are used to sending our province in the
corresponding part of the exchange. Old habits die hard.
Second, sending the prefix as a separate part of the exchange doesn't seem
very psychologically appealing. My call sign already contains my prefix, why
would I need to send it again? Do hams in California send "W6" as their
state? No, they send "CA". Why should I be treated differently?
The rules are also not 100% clear on this. The two paragraphs in Rule IX are
not consistent with each other. The first paragraph says: "One multiplier
point for each US state (48) and each Canadian area (13) on each band." As
an aside, there are actually 14 Canadian call sign areas now, but if you
want to combine NT (VE8) and NU (VY0), that won't affect too many people
(not too many contesters in either one!). Most of us can figure out what is
meant, just as US hams can tell what is meant by 48 instead of 50 states. So
far, so good; don't bother changing this sentence.
However, the second paragraph of the same Rule reads: "Canadian areas are
VO1, VO2, VE1 (NB, NS and PEI), VE2, VE3, VE4, VE5, VE6, VE7, VE8 (NWT), and
VY (Yukon.)". I only count 11 areas in this list! Oops, I guess they must
mean NB (VE9), NS (VE1) and PEI (VY2) to be separate. Not only that, but VY
is not the same as Yukon; there are three VY call sign areas (VY1 = Yukon,
VY2 = PEI, and VY0 = Nunavut). I know this looks weird geographically, but
that's the way it is. Don't blame me - blame the Canadian licensing
authorities!
My suggestion for a revision to this sentence in the rules would be:
"Canadian areas are NF (VO1), LB (VO2), NS (VE1/VA1), NB (VE9), PE (VY2), QC
(VE2/VA2), ON (VE3/VA3), MB (VE4/VA4), SK (VE5/VA5), AB (VE6/VA6), BC
(VE7/VA7), NT (VE8, VY0), and YT (VY1)."
As a final side note - the list of multipliers in the RTTY Roundup is
almost, but not quite, the same as in the CQ/DJ WW RTTY. The Roundup uses
provinces as multipliers, so VO1 and VO2 count as the same multiplier and
VE8 and VY0 count as two separate multipliers in the Roundup. Vive la
difference!
73,
Rich VE3IAY
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