[CQ-Contest] IARU log checking report

[David Gilbert]

It appears that EI8IC waded through that swamp several years ago, with 
the general conclusion that ITU zones for ham radio purposes are 
whatever the contest sponsor says they are.

http://lists.contesting.com/_cq-contest/2002-09/msg00130.html

73,
Dave   AB7E



On 6/5/2010 3:22 PM, Doug Grant wrote:
> I got curious, and went to the ITU site to confirm Joe's statement
> that part of Wisconsin is in Zone 7 instead of 8.
>
> The Official ITU CIRAF Zone map can be found here:
>
> http://www.itu.int/ITU-R/terrestrial/broadcast/hf/refdata/maps/index.html
>
> He's right.
>
> A quick look shows that the boundaries do not fall cleanly on
> call-area, state or even national borders. There are lots of
> part-of-Wisconsin-in-Zone-7-not-8 boundary cases. Half of Belize is in
> Zone 10, half in 11. Part of Maine (I think W5WMU/1's QTH is in that
> part) is in Zone 9 (generally all Zone 9s are assumed to be Canada).
> Parts of Washington State are in Zone 2. The U.S.-Mexico border
> wanders back and forth across the line, so some U.S. guys are really
> in Zone 10, and some XEs are in zone 7.
>
> In fact, the resolution of the official map is not particularly great,
> so it may be tough for a lot of people to figure out what zone they
> are really in.
>
> Seems to me that the ITU CIRAF zones were drawn with straight lines in
> an attempt to as closely as possible match assorted political
> boundaries. The intent was probably to match them exactly, but there's
> no obvious record I could find on the ITU site that said that. I found
> a text document that defines the (I think) the corners and centers of
> various quadrants within each zone for the purposes of monitoring
> signal strength of HF broadcast stations here:
>
> http://www.itu.int/ITU-R/terrestrial/broadcast/hf/refdata/reftables/ciraf.txt
>
> Kind of a drag that country/state boundaries don't fall cleanly on
> latitude/longitude lines, eh?
>
> So you can give out whatever zone you can reasonably assume the ITU
> wants you in...as long as you send the same zone the whole contest.
>
> And good luck to the log checkers!
>
> 73,
>
> Doug K1DG
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