Russian DXCC and call area locator issue

[LA9XSA]

I'm running RUMlog 5.0.7, but the same issue was present in 4.9.1

I am confused about the DXCC.rsd locator fields for Russia. For some reason, European Russia always gets shown as up in LP66 area, while Asiatic Russia gets shown as being on the European side of the Urals. Only UA8 and UA2 (Kaliningrad) are shown on a sensible place in the greyline map.

Editing DXCC.rsd with the DXCC editor doesn't help either. The CQ and ITU zones, and locators, for call areas 1, 3 and 4 seem to be correct in the DXCC.rsd file, and the locators seem correct there by default. However, when I enter a callsign from European Russia in RUMlog, or look at my past QSOs, the DXCC field in the log window always shows ITU: 29 and the bearing and distance is to LP66 in Asiatic Russia.

I've tried refreshing, rebooting, and starting with a fresh DXCC.rsd file. For some reason my instance of RUMlog does not re-read the locators in the DXCC table and the Areas table, or it seems there's something hard-coded in there that refuses to move the locator for the entity.

Edit:
There is one exception: RK4HYT is shown on a sensible location on the map.

[DL2RUM]

You made nothing wrong.
The default locations for W (call area), VE call area), UA (ITU zone) and UA9 (ITU zone) are hard coded, you can't change it!
I used the following for UA:

• ITU 19: KP71LL
• ITU 20: LP67LL
• ITU 29: KO85LL
• ITU 30: LO66LL

UA9:

• ITU 20: LP51LL
• ITU 21: MP80LL
• ITU 22: OP04LL
• ITU 23: PP42LL
• ITU 24: QP14LL
• ITU 25: RP01LL
• ITU 26: RP84LL
• ITU 30: LO84LL
• ITU 31: NO15LL
• ITU 32: OO22LL
• ITU 33: OO62LL
• ITU 34: PN78LL
• ITU 35: QO93LL
• Unknown: NO15LL

[LA9XSA]

• ITU 19: KP71LL
• ITU 20: LP67LL
• ITU 29: KO85LL
• ITU 30: LO66LL

It seems that only 20 and 30 are correct at my machine. QSOs from zone 29 and 19 are mapped in zone 20. Can you check the code?

[DL2RUM]

You are right, zone 29 is indicated as 20 due to a wrong written number. This will be fixed in the next update.

Zone 19 should work fine. As far as I know, ITU zone 19 is applicable for UA1N, UA1O, UA1Y and UA1Z.

[LA9XSA]

You are right, zone 29 is indicated as 20 due to a wrong written number. This will be fixed in the next update.

Thanks. That should make my bearings more correct.

Zone 19 should work fine. As far as I know, ITU zone 19 is applicable for UA1N, UA1O, UA1Y and UA1Z.

Those prefixes are indeed mapped to ITU 19, and the locator looks sensible. I tried testing by changing some of the zone 29 stations in my log to ITU 19 and back again to ITU 29, but this was not reacted to by the map. I haven't actually had a QSO with ITU 19 yet. I do have one in UA ITU 30 and one in UA ITU 20. The latter is a UA9X call in Komi Republic, on the European side of the Urals, which RUMlog correctly places in the European Russia DXCC entity as per ARRL instruction, even though as being in WAZ 17 it looks like in Asia on the CQ zone greyline map. (The limit between Asia and Europe is by tradition anyway.)

The only proper Asiatic Russia QSO i have so far is also in ITU 30, but in WAZ 17. On the map it looks like WAZ 16, but here close to the Volga one pretty much has to look up the address or locator, or check with the station for the WAZ and ITU (LotW, paper card, or user supplied on QRZ.com) right?

As for stations on the border between regions, could DXCC.rsd be used to manage zone exceptions? It was confusing to me that DXCC.rsd contained locators for Russian DXCCs and areas without the program using this data.

[LA9XSA]

When you make the update, can you check this as well? This is that European UA9X callsign which belongs to ITU 20 WAZ 17, but the DXCC field does not use the log field - it guesses ITU 29 WAZ 16.

Perhaps that is the wanted behavior, though?

[DL2RUM]

I'm always confused. There were some changes end of 2011. Do you have confirmed information about zones and continents about:

• UA9X
• UA9F
• UA9S
• UA9W
• UA9G

[LA9XSA]

As far as I can see from http://www.arrl.org/awards-blog

***And from 1 December, 2011 forward, any QSO (with any date) with stations using the following prefixes, count for European Russia:***??

Any call  with the prefixes UA through UI, or the prefix U,  and the numbers 8, and 9, followed by a suffix beginning with the letters F, G, or X (Perm and Komi).
 
Any call with the prefixes  RA through RZ, or the prefix R, and the numbers 8, and 9, followed by a suffix beginning with the letters F, G, or X (Perm and Komi).

That takes care of DXCC entity (Asia or Europe), but it seems for the ITU zones here (19,20,29 and 30) one has to primarily look at latitude and longitude, with some exceptions, while the WAZ follows the administrative borders more closely so the border between what CQ WAZ considers Europe and Asia is different from the DXCC, it seems.

I can look at it in detail later this week; perhaps some Russians can chime in too.
Here's an English language document explaining the new Russian callsign system: http://www.iaru-r1.org/index.php?option ... nfo&id=346

[LA9XSA]

Based on the above references, the official CQ WAZ list and this ITU zone map, here's the answer to your question:

• UA9X Komi DXCC: UA (Eu) CQ WAZ: 17 (As) ITU: 19, 20, 29, or 30
• UA9F Perm DXCC: UA (Eu) CQ WAZ: 17 (As) ITU: 20 (north of N 60) or 30 (south of N 60)
• UA9S Orenburg DXCC: UA9 (As) CQ WAZ: 16 (Eu) ITU: 30
• UA9W Bashkiria DXCC: UA9 (As) CQ WAZ: 16 (Eu) ITU: 30
• UA9G Perm DXCC: UA (Eu) CQ WAZ: 17 (As) ITU: 20 (north of N 60) or 30 (south of N 60)

As I said, the DXCC and CQ definitions of the continent border don't agree here.
The parts of UA9X in ITU 29 and 30 are pretty small, but the satellite image shows tilled land so maybe some hams live there too!

As for some portable callsigns, like say RU4SO/9, you can't tell the DXCC or CQ WAZ zone, or ITU zone from the callsign alone. You can tell he's likely in Asiatic Russia, but you can't be sure without asking him for his location. RU4SO/0 is definitely in Asiatic Russia though.

[DL2RUM]

See here: http://dl2rum.de/forum/viewtopic.php?f= ... 1727#p1727