[SCCC] Two-letter ARRL Section Abbreviations?

[Dennis Vernacchia]

Ok with me ...and to really liven it up..let's use "TJ" for San Diego
We are just a suburb of Tijuana...aren't we?


...or maybe N6TJ would like to have that reserved for Los Angeles area
seeing as LA is REALLY a suburb of Mexico....

I know...not Politically correct..Heh Heh

73, XE2/N6KI





-----Original Message-----
From: "Richard J. Norton" <ae327 at lafn.org>
Sent: Jan 8, 2005 10:41 AM
To: SCCC <SCCC at contesting.com>
Subject: [SCCC] Two-letter ARRL Section Abbreviations?

The Poles do. The Japanese do it. Why can't we do it?

Back in the old days, the number in our American callsigns denoted our
geographic area. If you had a 6 in your continental USA callsign, you were in
California.

In ARRL contests, like the Sweepstakes, those of us in the Los Angeles section
used LA for our section abbreviation. San Diego was SD.

When the FCC eliminated the necessary connection between location and callsign
number, the ARRL changed the CW abbreviation for Los Angeles to LAX, and that
of San Diego to SDG, to avoid confusion with Louisiana and South Dakota.

The 2.5 times as many ARRL members in the Los Angeles (compared to the number
in Louisiana) section got saddled with sending an extra X. There are 4.2 times
as many ARRL members in San Diego as there are in South Dakota, and those
members got saddled with sending an extra G in each exchange.

On CW, if one makes 1200 QSOs, the 1200 additional Xs sent by a Los Angeles
competitor (when compared to one in Louisiana) will eat up 20 minutes of
operating time!

The Poles and Japanese have crafted two-letter abbreviations for the
multipliers in their CW contests. Why shouldn't we?

Questions:

1) Is it desirable to change the 3-letter abbreviations to 2-letter
abbreviations?
I agree there will be a slight transition time where we have to learn something
new.

2) If yes, what should the abbreviations for the Southwestern Division sections
be?

Los Angeles - LO LS LX AN?
Orange -  OG NG?
San Diego - SG DG GO?
Santa Barbara - already SB
Arizona - already AZ

Although I have a pretty close relationship with the present ARRL Southwestern
Division Director, and there is an ARRL Board meeting in two weeks, I don't
believe this will be brought up at the meeting. I am not sure this is something
requiring Board action. It may get mentioned informally for consideration in
the future.

What are your views?

73,

Dick Norton, N6AA
SCCC President


_______________________________________________
SCCC mailing list
SCCC at contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/sccc