[CQ-Contest] Short contest calls.

[Ron Notarius WN3VAW]

When the FCC changed the regulations on call signs back in late 1977 (they
took effect in '78), they dropped the requirement that your "permanent" call
had to match the district in which you lived.

On the one hand, it meant that people who had had the same call for years
were not forced to change to a new call when they moved out of district.  On
the other hand, it also has caused confusion as to where someone was
geographically located ever since.

The simple solution would have been to maintain the requirement that you
signed "/W#" to indicate where you were operating from, as was required for
mobile and portable station operation prior to the rule change.  But that
too was dropped.  Some amateurs adopted the "slash district" convention
voluntarily, and I seem to recall at one time some overzealous individual
wanted them cited for that -- ie if it wasn't mandated, it wasn't permitted.
Fortunately, sanity arose, but I digress.

For general operating purposes, you would think that someone would want
their on-air transmissions to indicate as clearly as possible where they're
operating from, and for the vast majority of US amateurs operating outside
of the continental 48 states, this is so (and also for those who's calls
were originally external to the 48 but that's where they live now).  But
there are a significant portion who maintain an attitude to whit that their
ticket (and the FCC database) shows where they live, so figuring it out is
your problem.

And you have to admit, there's a certain irony in one particular ex-Guam
resident who used to rail about non-KH2/KH0 amateurs sucking up all of the
available 2x1's in the Northern Mariana;s (and he had a very valid argument
that I agreed with, I might add) now living in a US SE state, yet refusing
to either change his call (and free up the 2x1) or clearly indicate on-air
where he is.  But last I heard he's mad at me, so we need not go further on
that one, less he thinks I'm picking on him.

Now, having said that, I think it would be fair for any contest committee to
state as part of their rules that participant's on-air call sign must
indicate their true district (ie, if I'm in WV not PA, then I must sign
W8/WN3VAW or some variation thereof), and/or indicate their true DXCC entity
(ie, KP2/WN3VAW) to avoid unneccesary confusion to the rest of the
contest -- regardless of what their license says.  This would take a
tremendous burden off of people like AD1C who have to track this mess for
'most every contest.

Of course, you will always have those who refuse to do so, citing their
rights, or their license, or refusing to acknowledge the contest rule, or
whatever.  Fine.  Many of those probably won't bother to enter.  The rest,
either automatically DQ'd (a very harsh penalty) or automatically converted
to a Check Log and ineligible for awards etc.  Put that in the rules.  Then
do it.  That should clear up the problem.

Oh yes, Hans is right -- Hawaii was K6.  Before World War II.  That's
irrelevant to today's contesting, tho an interesting if trivial fact.  I
don't know whether or not there's an ITU or FCC regulation mandating the use
of the appropriate prefix in this type of situation, tho I'm sure if there
is , sooner or later someone will dig it up.  Common sense (now there's a
non sequiter anymore) indicates that you should indicate your entity if it
doesn't match your call, and frankly, if K6WXYZ doesn't want to sign
KH6/K6WXYZ, well, he's hurting himself.  But you can't stop some people from
being schmucks, they insist on their right to do so.

73, ron wn3vaw

"You used up all the glue ON PURPOSE!"
In Memory of Shep K2ORS (SK) and 10:15 PM on WOR 710 AM

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tim Makins, EI8IC" <contesting at eircom.net>
To: "CQ Contest" <cq-contest at contesting.com>
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Short contest calls.
Date: Mon, 2 Dec 2002 16:47:28 -0000

Although there are no international regulations saying you must use a
sensible prefix, why on earth wouldn't you want to do so ? By having a
callsign that confuses everybody, you are just wasting their time as well as
your own. You lose operating time generated by frequent location requests,
whilst they lose time in other ways. I wonder how many people waited for the
beam to swing around to what they thought was the correct direction, noticed
the signal got weaker, and tried to peak it by guesswork or ear ? Or how
many sat in a pileup for a new mult, only to find it was xxx-ville. Or spent
time wondering how to get their logger to accept the call ? And what right
have they got to waste the time of busy people like Jim AD1C and others who
have to track them down and enter them into the .cty lists ??? This is pure
selfishness on behalf of the operator. Whatever the reasons for holding on
to their cherished or 'cool' callsign, I would like them banned from all
future contests.

Final thought: We may as well all pay for North Korean callsigns, and use
them, in my case, /EI
Should be good for a few pileups ? What do you think ?

73s Tim P5ABC/EI
.
.
.
www.qsl.net/ei8ic/
Contester resources. Interesting Maps.



----- Original Message -----
From: "KOHB" <k0hb at earthlink.net>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jan Erik Holm" <sm2ekm at telia.com>
> > Talking about US calls, can you people explain this to me, it?s
> > been puzzling me for years.
> > There is a K6 guy operating from KH6, he doesn?t sign /KH6
> > or KH6/ just his K6 and two letter suffix. I have asked him on
> > the air and he says it?s perfectly right. How can it be?? Does
> > not seem to follow international regulations which also are signed
> > by the USA.
>
> The "K6" suffix is assigned to the USA.  Hawaii is part of the USA.  There
is no
> international regulation which says Hawaii stations must sign "KH6".  In
fact,
> Hawaii was originally "K6" and California was "W6" only.  Within the
borders of
> a country there is no international regulation how the prefixes must be
> allocated.
>
>
> o?o  73, de Hans, K0HB



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