Some of this is a little tongue-in-cheek or my weak attempt at humour
(it'll hopefully be obvious which parts) so try not to take everything
I've written below as too serious.
For those of you that are humour impaired, please look away....look away
now !
A little unrelated to contesting, but did any of you ever watch the
Canadian Comedy TV show "Corner Gas" whereby when a neighbouring town
name was mentioned(normally Wullerton), all the residents of Dog River
present would spit (or fake spit) on the ground?
When I hear the acronym "MAR", that's me. SOME of us guys out East (at
least me in particular) almost "hates" MAR (but hate is way too
strong......) Very much dislikes the "MAR" designation only as it
relates to contesting because I don't live in MAR<spit>, I live in New
Brunswick. (or Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island) etc. and MOST contests
have always permitted us to send the correct Provincial designation. In
the past I didn't always get to play for the home team! (Only SS, ARRL
160, some Sprints and CQP are the ones that come to mind)
A few years ago the (various) Sprint folks were very kind to us VE9, VE1
and VY2 types and may have been among the first (of the last!) of
contests to let us send NB, NS and PE---so another thank you to those
movers and shakers !
Not long after (actually, Jan 1, 2023), RAC (It's kinda/sorta like the
VE version of the ARRL for those readers abroad) finally got rid of the
MAR designation (which has absolutely NOTHING to do with contests, I
should be careful to mention) and so the last few contests that I am
aware of have all adopted the NB, NS and PE designations for mults
(partially?) based on the RAC and ARRL finally no longer using
it....again MAR as it relates to RAC and ARRL has zero to do with
contesting !
(there is still some housekeeping work to be done @ ARRL fixing up
scores and records, but that's minor)
I believe (but stand to be corrected) that the CQP
<https://www.cqp.org/Rules.html> CQP Rules
which most of us love, was the very last holdout on the World stage to
get rid of it. (they called it MR) <spits on ground> :-)
Thank you to Chris/N6WM and all those folks in California who have
finally permitted us to send NB, NS and PE in your truly great QSO
party.
So anyways......I am rambling a little bit. I guess I don't have
anything left to complain about contesting wise--Geez-what
now?......maybe cut #'s in serial # contests? High K indices?
Perpetually losing the Poison d'Avril test? or maybe everyone being
zero beat in a big EU pileup on 80m? (1rst World problems from here in
the Northeast?)
I wish to extend my thanks to all of you to have put up with my minor
moaning and groaning over the decades while I worked (in tandem with
others to be sure) to help supply information and reasoning to those
last small handful of contests to move us away from using "MAR" <spit>
as a mult. In the end the situation mostly remedied itself and sponsors
like Sprint and CQP agreed to modify their rules on mults. based on what
RAC and the ARRL and a few others have done.
Now I really AM rambling.
Appreciation all around ! ! !
Mike VE9AA, current president Maritime Contest Club (MCC) (Is it Ironic
our contest club name has that word in it?) haha
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