I want to offer a little clarification on the matter of
Canadian "sections."
As others have pointed out, "sections" are the geographic
areas that are the basis of the ARRL and RAC field
organisations. Currently in Canada, there are RAC sections
for NL, MAR, QC, ON, MB, SK, AB and BC. There is no field
organisation as such in YT, NT and NU, but there could be as
soon as someone takes of the job of organising one or more.
Despite the absence of any field organisation in these three
territories, they are considered to be one "section" for the
purposes of some ARRL contests (SS, 160m) as multipliers.
In other contests, including some ARRL contests (DX, 10m),
these three territories are each considered separate
multipliers.
Someone noted that YT is part of RAC's "Pacific Section."
This is false. YT is bunched in with BC for the purposes of
elections to RAC's Board of Directors, while NT and NU are
bunched in with Alberta for that same purpose, but this has
no relation to the "field organisation" or contest
multipliers. In that same vein, Ontario is divided in two
on RAC's board, but is only one "section" in the field
organisation and for multipliers.
"Sections" are one class of thing. The members of the RAC
Board constitute another class of thing. Provinces and
Territories, constitued parts of the Dominion of Canada, are
yet another class of thing. Don't mix them up.
Confusing? Sure, but there are bigger mysteries in life.
Why is there no field organisation in Canada's arctic?
There are only 100,000 people living in a land area of about
3.5 million square kilometres, which, for some of the more
parochial readers here, is five time the size of Texas.
There may be all of 200 hams in all that space. Think about
those numbers: what proportion of the Amateur population
gets involved in their local field organisation? Darned
few. When they do, it's usually begins with a local net. A
net covering such as vast area is anything but local,
especially when the aurora is nearly always present to
absorb your signal.
In short, the YT/NT/NU "section" is a harmless fiction that
serves only to make a very few contests more interesting.
ARRL 's contest robot could accomodate the few logs they
receive from good guys like J. VY1JA by accepting YT, NT and
NU as legitimate identifiers for this non-existent
"section." I bet it wouldn't take five minutes to fix that,
less time that it took me to write this.
Dave VE2ZP
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