If you read W0QE's commentst below you will see that the MARAC 4 letter code
for San Diego is SDGO.
The 4 digit code that was created is available to be used by all. The
contest sponsors/administrators have the task of determining what will be
used in their contests. Nobody said that anyone had to use it. There is no
governing board of all Ham Radio contests that would determine such.
In my opinion it would sure be nice if there was some standardization
especially on weekends where there are numberous Qso parties and contests
using county abbrievations.
I am not sure who should have been consulted about what. The CQP folks
changed their abbrieviations and a few folks complained and now here we are.
If you don't like the changes of a contest great. Don't operate. There is
no need to make nasty comments and storm off. Things change and life goes
on. Is it that tough to read the rules each year and familiarize yourself
with any new changes and operate and have a good time.
Mike W0MU
-----Original Message-----
From: cq-contest-bounces@contesting.com
[mailto:cq-contest-bounces@contesting.com] On Behalf Of N6KI Dennis
Vernacchia
Sent: Wednesday, October 11, 2006 1:38 PM
To: Larry Benko
Cc: cq-contest@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] 4 letter Abbreviations
Losing dits in the noise of 80 and 160 meters also stinks
not consulting people affected by your changes also stinks
SDGO not SDIE
73, Dennis N6KI
Larry Benko wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> I have been watching the comments about the 4 letter abbreviations
> over the past few days.
>
> I am the designer of the MARAC county abbreviations. In the MARAC CW
> contest there are a possible 3077 multipliers and with county names
> such as Washington, Washburn, Washita, Washoe, Washtenaw or Greene,
> Greenlee, Greensville, Greenup, Greenville, Greenwood we (MARAC) felt
> a need to do something about the abbreviation mess we had. Stations
> were using state QSO party abbreviations, making up their own, or just
> sending what ever they wanted.
>
> Considering the requirements I used when designing the list there are
> a few odd abbreviations. My criteria were to use 3 letter
> abbreviations ONLY for the 27 counties that have 3 letter names, uses
> the actual name for all counties with 4 letter names, have all
> counties abbreviations start with the first letter of the actual
> county name, have ALL Madison, Washington etc. counties abbreviated
> the same in all states and have no
> 2 counties in the same state able to be confused by the
> addition/deletion of a dit or dah to any letter. Given all these
> requirements and after considerable work and review we published the
> list. There were a few compromises such as Hill and Hall, TX which
> are too close in spelling and a dit/dah error can cause a mistake.
>
> Now with that all said, I really didn't expect that many state QSO
> parties would use the MARAC abbreviations. Anyone is certainly
> welcome to use them but a 4 letter abbreviation for Delaware which has
> only 3 counties might be just a wee bit too much. The CAQP used about
> 80% of our abbreviations (the MARAC abbrev. for San Diego is SDGO and
> not SDIE). No matter what abbreviations are used it is certainly nice
> if everyone followed them. Expecting a 4 letter abbrev. and getting a
> 3 letter one stinks.
>
> 73 to all,
> Larry, W0QE
>
>
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>
>
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