[CQ-Contest] Deleted ARRL sections

[Kenneth E. Harker]

On Sat, Nov 07, 2009 at 05:08:43PM -0600, Doug Smith wrote:

> ARRL Sections are for the purpose of administering the work of the League.  There is no award for the greatest number of Sections worked over time -- 
> being able to present a QSL for a 1934 QSO with Southern Minnesota doesn't earn you an additional credit for the WAAS** Award.  There really is no 
> need, beyond historical interest, to know what ARRL Sections existed in the past or who worked them.  It's of no value today.

ARRL sections are the basis of awards and records for many ARRL contests.
In working on the records of the ARRL 10 meter and ARRL 160 meter contests, 
the question comes up about what to do with, for example, the pre-1989 scores
from the Washington (WA) section.  It seems patently unreasonable to 
arbitrarily assign them all to either WWA or EWA.  It makes much more sense 
to treat WA as a deleted section.
 
> To that end, I would suggest no Section is ever deleted -- it's just that Section boundaries and names change.  It's kinda like redrawing electoral 
> district lines.  When Wisconsin lost a seat in the House of Representatives some years ago, that territory wasn't "deleted" -- it just ended up in 
> some other Congressional District.

Redrawing ARRL section lines is kind of like redrawing national
boundaries in Europe - the territory doesn't go away, as you say.  Nobody 
can claim victory in the Washington section anymore.  Nobody can set a new 
Washington section record.  For radio contesting purposes, we can think of
the Washington section as a deleted section.

-- 
Kenneth E. Harker WM5R
kenharker at kenharker.com
http://www.kenharker.com/