As a both a resident of and active contester from of the District of
Columbia for almost 20 years, I'm happy to see some sanity rise to the
surface of this discussion.
I've been fighting the battle to include the District as a multiplier in the
NAQPs for longer than I care to remember. The response from the NAQP
management has included the following -- not to mention some truly
off-the-fall comments by those who seemed to have been hidden under a rock
for a long, long time (can you say Luddite?). I've saved all of the email
traffic... pretty wild stuff!
1. "Can you guarantee the number of stations who will participate in: the
contest." My response has been "of course not," just as no one is willing
to guarantee the number of participants in the NAQPs from any other entity.
Look at past scores. Not all 50 states have been represented in every
session.
There were 8 stations active in the ARRL 10 meter contest. I haven't looked
at the log submissions list (I'm overseas at the moment), but I suspect that
our 8 stations are more than the number of stations from ND, SD and one or
two other states... possibly combined.
2."The contest software authors will have to change their software to
accommodate a new multiplier."
Yes, we'll have to update our multiplier list. This happened with the latest
running of the ARRL 10 meter contest when they added all of the XE districts
as separate multipliers. I didn't hear any complaints from the authors of
N1MM, Writelog, Win-Test, TRlog or any other contest logging program. A
non-issue.
3. "The District of Columbia isn't a state."
True, and I don't live in Maryland, either. What differentiates form
residents of a state is that we residents do not have full representation in
the Congress. We have an elected Delegate to the House of Representatives
who has limited voting privileges, and no representation in the Senate. We
elect our City Council and Mayor. We develop our own budget, which, unlike
the 50 states, must be approved by the House and Senate. We set and pay
local and federal taxes (and how!) to pay for the running of our city. We
are are completely self-governed. I recommend you read the District of
Columbia Home Rule Act, which was enacted in 1973. It will make you a better
citizen of this country.
What I find fascinating by this discussion are the comments that reveal the
utter lack of knowledge or understanding of the political and geographic
structure of this country.
The NAQPs are GREAT training grounds for potential and new contesters and
are wonderful for those of us who don' t want to spend an entire weekend on
the air. What I find truly disappointing is that at a time when the
contesting community expresses concern about the low levels of
participation, the unwillingness of the NAQP management to add a heretofore
disenfranchised group -- those of us who, like me will not participate
because we don't live in Maryland -- seems contradictory to the community's
overall goal.
So deciding whether to get on for the NAQP or the ARRL RTTY Roundup is an
easy one.The ARRL RTTY Roundup counts DC as a separate multiplier.
73,
Eric W3DQ
Washington, DC (and proud of it)
--------------------------------
Date: Sun, 26 Dec 2010 07:20:37 -0700
From: Barry <w2up@comcast.net>
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Revised 2011 NAQP Rules - while we're at it....
To: cq-contest@contesting.com
Message-ID: <4D174F35.9010200@comcast.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Let's take it a step further - any contests that break up YU, NU, adnNWT
into separate mutls should also include Mexcian states as mults. Then
next, does Belize have states? :.)
Barry W2UP
On 12/25/2010 8:36 PM, Jimk8mr@aol.com wrote:
> In contests that distinguish between Canada's Yukon, Northwest
Territories,
> and Nunavut, it makes as much or more sense to recognize the District of
> Columbia as being separate from Maryland. As scare as DC might be, it
still
> has more active hams (or at least more active hams that can be heard
> through auroral propagation) than all three of those territories combined.
>
> In contests that combine those three territories into one multiplier, it
is
> logical is to include the District of Columbia as part of Maryland.
>
> Likewise, in contests that use ARRL/RAC sections, it follows to use the
> MDC section. (The Canadian northern territories are not an RAC section;
they
> are a special exception from their administrative treatment of being part
> of the Alberta section).
>
> The NAQP is the first type of contest - it counts the three Canadian
> northern territories as separate multipliers.
>
>
> 73 - Jim K8MR
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