[CQ-Contest] Multiple QP Contests / Standard County Codes

[jimk8mr at aol.com]

Try explaining county codes to a random guy, who is not in the contest, calling in on phone.
A more worthwhile effort would to be get county abbreviations to have a standard format, i.e. the first three or four letters so long as there are not more than one county sharing those letters (i.e. MONroe and MONtgomery if three letters are used).
On CW it's not a big deal - copy what's sent. But on phone, mixing first letters names with first consonants names is crazy. In Illinois, for example, McHenry is MCHE but McClennan is MCLN. As an out of station running in state guys, it's a real pain trying to guess what abbreviation will be accepted by the logging software.

73  -  Jim   K8MR



-----Original Message-----
From: Dave Edmonds <dave at pkministrywebs.com>
To: w3idt at comcast.net
Cc: CQ-Contest <cq-contest at contesting.com>
Sent: Tue, Sep 22, 2020 3:28 pm
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Multiple QP Contests / Standard County Codes

Hi Bob

I didnt know about these county codes. I’m imagining this exchange while
working K8MR/m at 42 wpm. Most of the QP county codes are similar to the
county name, but there  are exceptions... like some of those things n the
 VAQP or NewEng QP (every QP has them).

Ty
DAVE WN4AF

On Tue, Sep 22, 2020 at 3:15 PM Bob, W3IDT <w3idt at comcast.net> wrote:

> One solution to the multiple State QPs and same-named counties
>
> problem is to use STANDARD CENSUS / ANSI COUNTY (numeric) codes.
>
> Gives a little challenge to copy the codes correctly:
>
>
>
> I live in MD 031 (MD Montgomery County)
>
>
>
> Someone probably lives in AL 101 (AL Montgomery County)
>
> and in GA 209 (GA Montgomery County)
>
> and so on for the, I think, 16 Montgomery Counties around the US.
>
>
>
> Bob, w3idt
>
> --
>
>
>