[Dxbase] Alaskan counties

Tue Mar 22 03:14:42 EDT 2011

Gary,   that was a very interesting lesson in political-geography,  thank you.   And whats more interesting is that it was your QSL card which started my search for information.  Even though I am not a county hunter I usually enter the county names in DXbase.(some day I'll have 1000) hi  Not finding a county name on your card I began to snoop on line.I never thought the answer could be so ironicPS - thanks for the nice cardcheersDavidVE3VID

> From: al9a at mtaonline.net
> To: dxbase at mailman.qth.net
> Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2011 14:06:16 -0800
> Subject: Re: [Dxbase] Alaskan counties
> 
> Point of order and a bit of history.  There are no counties in Alaska. 
> Instead we have boroughs, which are the functional equivalent of counties. 
> My understanding is that this came about prior to Alaska statehood in 1959. 
> The big three industries up here then were fishing, mining, and logging. 
> Oil wasn't on anyone's radar yet.
> 
> These three industries lobbied Congress to preclude the new state of Alaska 
> from organizing into counties, so as to prevent the imposition of local 
> property taxes on their operations.  Congress agreed and the law creating 
> the State of Alaska forbade the forming of counties.  So the new State of 
> Alaska Legislature created a State Constitution that, instead of counties, 
> authorized the creation of Boroughs, which do have the power to levy 
> property taxes!
> 
> There are now 18 boroughs in Alaska, mostly in the more populated areas of 
> the state.  However, despite what the Census map indicates, the borough 
> system does not cover the entire state.  Most of the bush communities are 
> unincorporated and wish to stay that way.  They are cash poor and live 
> largely on subsistence - hunting, fishing, trapping and government handouts, 
> state and federal.  They do not wish to have an organized borough government 
> that would inevitably lead to property taxes to support the local government 
> and schools and drain their meager cash resources via taxation.
> 
> So this leaves Alaska with vast areas that are not organized in any form of 
> local government.  I believe the solution used by the County Hunters is to 
> use the four Judicial Districts of the State of Alaska Court System instead. 
> The Judicial Districts do cover the entire state, even out to the end of the 
> Aleutians.
> 
> The "County" names you see in DXBase are neither counties, nor boroughs, nor 
> Judicial Districts.  Rather they are regional names descriptive of various 
> geographic parts of the state.  For example, I live in the Matanuska-Susitna 
> Borough which is in the Third Judicial District and the South-Central 
> Region.  Which one would you prefer to use?  Maybe someone could check with 
> the County Hunters to verify the Judicial District use.  If that is actually 
> the case maybe Neal can change the current regional names to First, Second, 
> Third and Fourth JD or something like that for AK counties.
> 
> 73,
> Gary AL9A
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Bill Parry" <bparry at rgv.rr.com>
> To: "'Jack'" <lennoxj at bellsouth.net>; "'David VE3VID'" <ve3vid at hotmail.com>; 
> <dxbase at mailman.qth.net>
> Sent: March 21, 2011 12:16 PM
> Subject: Re: [Dxbase] Alaskan counties
> 
> 
> > Jack,
> >
> > The problem with doing this is that none of the Alaskan Counties ever get
> > counted in any way.  Basically when you import from LOTW it errors out all
> > the Alaskan Counties....as well as the Canadian counties! So what good is
> > it?
> >
> > Bill W5VX
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: dxbase-bounces at mailman.qth.net 
> > [mailto:dxbase-bounces at mailman.qth.net]
> > On Behalf Of Jack
> > Sent: Monday, March 21, 2011 2:46 PM
> > To: David VE3VID; dxbase at mailman.qth.net
> > Subject: Re: [Dxbase] Alaskan counties
> >
> > DXbase bases its selections in accordance with what the "County Hunters"
> > award guidelines publish for AK.  They don't use the county names for AK.
> >
> > ----- Original Message ----- 
> > From: "David VE3VID" <ve3vid at hotmail.com>
> > To: <dxbase at mailman.qth.net>
> > Sent: Monday, March 21, 2011 3:26 PM
> > Subject: [Dxbase] Alaskan counties
> >
> >
> >>
> >> Hi,  I was just comparing a map of Alaskan counties,
> >> http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/maps/alaska_map.htmland the counties 
> >> list
> >
> >> that appears for Alaska in a 'Previous QSO' window search.  DXbase
> >> produces county names like Central, NorthWest, SouthCentral, and
> >> SouthEast.  I'm sure there are other users who have found this, and 
> >> likely
> >
> >> there is some fix or update that I missed sometime.  Can anyone shed some
> >> light on what happened and how to fix it?
> >> ThanksDavid
> >>    VE3VID
> >> Located in rural Canada
> >> Solar power.  Wood heat.
> >> Mosley tribander @ 22m
> >> 2element delta-quad on 40m
> >> Lots of space for dipoles,
> >> bears and wolves......73
> >>
> >> http://www.ve3vid.webs.com/
> >>
> >>
> >>
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