[CQ-Contest] Counting DC as a Multiplier and Not as PartofMaryland.

[Steve Harrison]

At 08:00 AM 5/23/2007 -0500, Richard DiDonna NN3W wrote:
>How is it reasonable that a political entity which......
.......
>
>Absurd.

Yanno, that almost sounds as if DC should, just like the 4U1s and the
Vatican, by rights, be considered a new ENTITY altogether.

8-))))))))))))))

I mean, what's the difference between DC and, say, the Vatican, for
example?? Why, for that matter, isn't Jerusalem a separate entity (other
than the fact that it's within Israel and not "governed" by a
larger-than-life religious figure, as the Vatican is)?

Or even Mecca, in Saudi Arabia? How about Constantinople, where the
Orthodox Catholic church is headquartered?

Yeah, I know: all of those, except the Vatican, are not
politically-separate from the country within which they're located. The
Vatican is, and is regarded, world-wide, by every nation, as a "country"
separate from Italy. IIRC, that was the result of some middle-ages treaty.

>There is absolute imperative to change it - its a separate entity. But 
>for the ARRL section system, there is NO political or legal connection 
>of the District and Maryland.  None.  And, BTW, you should note that I 
>never said that ARRL 160 recognized DC as a separate multiplier. It is 
>indeed sections.  Thank you for making note of the obvious.

Rember that ARRL does have strict definitions of what constitutes a
"section". IIRC, it's based upon both the population of a section-wannabe,
and the opinions of those living within the area of the existing section
and the section-wannabe. Witness, for example, the relatively-new sections
in Florida and Texas, and how they came to be.

A cursory search of the ARRL web site didn't find a definition of how an
area qualifies to become a new section; but IIRC, it's based upon
population, plus a vote by the members of the existing section from which
the new section would be carved. According to Wikipedia: "The population of
the District of Columbia, as of 2005 United States Census Bureau estimates,
is 582,049 persons." Wikipedia lists the population of Maryland, as of the
2000 census, as just over 5.6M. Thus, the population of DC is a bit more
than 10% that of Maryland, a significant percentage.

I wasn't aware that there apparently is no such thing as the "Canadian
Division"; nor that the various provinces of Canada are not actually ARRL
"Sections". Seems to me there used to be a Canadian Division?? So when you
want figger out what the various VE "sections" are, you have to look at,
for example, http://www.arrl.org/contests/sections.abv.html

Steve, K0XP