[CQ-Contest] Phonetics

[Stuart Santelmann KC1F]

> Well, Steve, I guess you have to live with that. Not everybody in the 
> World
> knows (and cares) about right abbreviation of the States.
> That's why Mike-November is much better (same with Sierra-Juliet-Victor 
> for
> SJV).
> What if someone in Rus DX Contest would tell you -"5x9, Chelyabinsk"? 
> What
> would you LOG? :-))
>
> And for someone who earlier had trouble spelling "E" - I can tell that
> "Echo" works fine for me.
>
> regards,
> Yuri  VE3DZ
>

Hi Yuri:

Well, it seems to me that 25-30 years ago more people "knew or cared" about 
worldwide geography and could name the 50 US states.  I think it would be 
great if more people "knew or cared" about issues in other countries. 
Referencing my previous post, it seems that this skill or interest has 
waned.  I think fewer American kids can name the 50 states now than 30 years 
ago, and more's the pity.  And in your response to your "59 Chelyabinsk" 
question, I would hope we would be motivated to learn about Russian 
geography and the rules for the Russian contest, and proceed accordingly. I 
have some pins from the CQM contest in the 1970s which I cherish.   I was 
fascinated by the Oblast numbers in the CQM contest prior to 1991, and still 
remember the more common exchanges - 125 for Kaliningradsk, 088 for 
Murmansk, 101 for UK6LAZ, 08something for Ukraine.  The point is that people 
seemed to have more interest in learning worldwide geography in the past, 
and that is going away apparently...

I hope to be in Moscow in 2010 WRTC if my wife lets me !  hi

Spasiba        Stu        KC1F