I am about ready to sit down and fill out the log sheet for the certificate for working K6JSS Golden Jubilee Stations. As I mentioned before, I've worked 47 of the 50.
Anyway, I am looking at the WAS map that the QRP-ARCI so graciously provided along with the log sheet. And I'm noticing something I don't think I've ever really payed attention to before in all my 30+ years in the hobby. I'd bet good money that someone else noticed this before and that I'm just really slow on the uptake.
We start in the North East - Call section 1. Next we come down to New York and New Jersey - Call section 2. Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland - the Middle Atlantic states - Call section 3. The great South East - Call section 4. Now on to the Central Southern states - Call section 5. Out West to California - Call section 6. Up to the great North West and other Western states - Call section 7.
Sense the pattern? We started in the North East and we're working around the perimeter of the country (more or less) in a clockwise pattern (more or less) - in numerical order.
So now, after the great North West, we move over to the Central Northern and Central states - Call section 0 ????? What happened? Why do sections 0, 9 and 8 seem to be backwards? We were working our way, nicely around the country in a nice numerical order and all of a sudden - chaos!
I'm sure there's an excellent explanation. Any Amateur Radio history buffs out there that can enlighten me?
72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!
Larry, I think they broke the pattern at 8 so that folks wouldn't get dizzy following the map in numerical order. ;-)
ReplyDeleteMade my day once once more, fantastic post..two thumbs up!:)
ReplyDeleteI was only 10 years old when WWII ended and I started listening to my aunt's RCA all-wave radio and discovered strange conversations just above 14,000 kc/s (as frequencies were described back then), but I think W0 didn't exist. It would be interesting to find a map of call areas for say 1946, or whenever it was that radio amateurs were allowed back on the air.
ReplyDeleteDavid, ex-W8EZE
After WWII, the boundaries of the original 9 call areas were tweaked, and a new call area 0 created from a large portion of old call area 9.
ReplyDeleteA nice article on the history of US amateur callsigns can be found here.
In the 1920's and 30's my grandfather (Ted Klingel) and his brother (Felix) had a station call of W8AUU in western New York. At some point they got the station call W2AUU, my mother now holds that call sign. I am a third generation ham. They were hams before you needed a call sign.
ReplyDelete