Topband: Well, Duh... (Apology re: ARRL160)

[Guy Olinger K2AV]

I screwed up and spent a couple of one hour stretches Saturday night CQing
in the DX window until someone got my attention and convinced me that ARRL
still had a DX window in their 160 contest, even though the CQ 160 and both
all-band DX tests had dumped theirs years ago, and I thought I remembered
ARRL HQ group voted to drop it from their 160 as well. [1]

** But no excuses for not knowing the rules.** So that makes my entry
invalid, and will be submitted this year only as a check log. My entry will
not have an invalid advantage over anyone else's. Apologies to anyone I may
have inconvenienced.

73, Guy K2AV

[1] Actually June, 2009, yes they did vote to drop it, and it was the ARRL
Contest Advisory Committee. See:


http://www.arrl.org/files/file/About%20ARRL/Committee%20Reports/July/29_Contest_Advisory_Committee.pdf

An interesting read.

Should note that the report phrases the current rule as a "recommendation",
as if to indicate they don't consider it a hard rule, and *nobody* voted to
make it a "requirement". They consider the rule unenforceable. From the
report:

"4. Vote: Rule 6.1
 A. Delete (9)
 B. Make it a requirement (0)
 C. Leave it as a recommendation (7)"

The report lists in their committee discussion many of the issues brought
up in a thread on the DX window on TopBand a week or so ago.