[CQ-Contest] IARU HF zones

[Michael Keane, K1MK]

On 7/8/2010 8:58 PM, VR2BrettGraham wrote:

> IARU president said because they were created by ITU for a different
> purpose, the "ITU zones" that have been adopted for amateur radio use
> may be interpreted as need be.
>
> It appears the ARRL has a different idea of where the zone boundaries
> lie within NA from IARU,

In 1996, G4BWP of the RSGB's HF Committee made a proposal at the 1996 
Region 1 General Conference Tel Aviv that a common set of boundaries be 
identified for the "ITU regions as used in amateur radio" based upon 
research done  by G3HTA and G3KMA. The RSGB's proposal was accepted at 
the Region 1 Conference in Lillehammer (1999), Region 3 Conference in 
Darwin (2000) and the Region 2 Conference in Guatemala City (2001).

This is the set of boundaries that are tabulated in the Region 1 HF 
Managers Handbook (as previously referenced) and elsewhere.

> Looking back to 1977 when the IARU
> Radiosport Championship first started, the map was part of the contest
> announcement published in QST.  Sometime before the contest changed into
> the HF Championship in 1986, published announcements replaced the map
> with a zone/prefix list

The irrelevant map showing the ITU HFBC CIRAF zones was removed from the 
published rules the second year of the IARU Radiosport Championship 
(1978); a prefix to zone table (a la the IARU's) appeared in the 
published rules until 2002 when it was moved to the web (from whence it 
disappeared earlier this year).

73,
Mike K1MK