Yep, it seems to be a legacy thing to some extent.
I even looked into adopting the MARAC/County Hunter list of abbreviations.
All of our counties do have that abbreviation except 32 counties.
I even seem to remember that the CH list does use a scheme (Rational) like you mentioned.
I even suggested this scheme as a basic standard for all parties...
It was a no go, programming, yada, yada... inertia.
Getting the logging programs to get in step seems to be the major issue.
So it is what it is.
BTW, for our scoring, I do a 6 deep alias list for each county, and those alternate spellings are check when a mismatch is found in a Q.
One of the levels is the MARAC(Sp?) list too.
If an umambiguous alias is found, the associated real abbreviation is used, others kick out in an err list to visually check.
Such is the state of the party.
Trivia..
The alias table is 11 deep for each State and Province because the Cabrillo 2 spec asks for ARRL Section. Cab 3 uses "LOCATION".
But folks still enter LAX for CA, WPA for PA... etc.
CA has 9 ARRL sections that need to be checked and converted to CA if any are found. Add CAL, and CALIF and the table is full for CA.
Fun stuff for programmers.
Mike
(and, Chattahoochee and Chattooga both come out CHTT when the vowels are dropped, but they seem to be the only ones.)
Please use ne4s@iham.us as my address.
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From: John T. Laney III <k4bai@att.net>
To: Tom W8JI <w8ji@w8ji.com>; secc <secc@contesting.com>
Sent: Wed, April 6, 2011 8:05:18 PM
Subject: Re: [SECC] Possible Confusing County Abbreviations
The list was established in 1999 and is in all the logging program. I
am not about to suggest changing them and then trying to get the various
writers of logging programs to change them. 73, John.
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