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Author Topic: When did you last work a new one,  (Read 1191 times)

EI2GLB

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Re: When did you last work a new one,
« Reply #45 on: December 28, 2022, 07:03:56 AM »

You would think that the well know DXpeditioner with a big yacht would take a trip down that way and see if he can put it on air?? as unlike most of the wanted top 10 there doesn't seem to be any political reason not to activate it, just that you might get wet feet at high tide  ;D


There have been arguments about Scarborough Shoals (as some on-line references call it) for years.

A well-placed, experienced DXpeditioner told me that one reason people are so cock-sure that it is underwater is that the actual godforsakenrock (tm) that is used for these operations is at a different place than most people think it is.

Me, I dunno.  It's a miserable excuse for a "country", but people near DXCC Challenge 3000, particularly, are gonna scream bloody murder if it is proposed for deletion.  That's part of the reality.  Nobody else really would care, but we're talking the best of the best.
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NB3R

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Re: When did you last work a new one,
« Reply #46 on: December 29, 2022, 03:29:59 AM »

"Scarborough Reef wouldn't qualify by today's criteria, but was grandfathered to stay on the list"

Lots of entities on the DXCC list wouldn't qualify by today's criteria, but were grandfathered.  Someday when I get more time, I am going to figure out what the DXCC list would look like if we only applied today's criteria to each entity with no grandfathering.  I am guessing 40 or so entities would be removed.

73 John AF5CC

That would be an interesting list!

Dave
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Dave
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W4AMP

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Re: When did you last work a new one,
« Reply #47 on: December 29, 2022, 04:11:45 AM »

Worked VK9WX on Willis Island today for a new one. 40 meter ssb.
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KB2FCV

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Re: When did you last work a new one,
« Reply #48 on: December 30, 2022, 05:57:10 PM »

Worked FT8WW for a new one (#319 current) today on 30m FT8. Hope to get him on CW eventually as well.
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WO7R

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Re: When did you last work a new one,
« Reply #49 on: January 03, 2023, 06:52:38 AM »

Quote
Quote
I am guessing 40 or so entities would be removed.
That would be an interesting list!

Indeed it would.  I am not sitting here, detailed rule book in hand, but here's some things that probably get deleted and/or merged or at least require a hard look:

Asiatic and European Russia.  It's one big landmass, folks, and there is not even the pretense of any kind of political division.  They were probably done as two originally because , g** da**it, it's just too big otherwise.

How many of the "countries" in the British Isles would remain?  On what serious grounds are Wales and Scotland separate?  Until they actually have an independent parliament and UN Seat (neither seems on offer yet), those would seem dubious.

Some of the islands entities (I'm looking at you Isle of Man) probably are not 800 km away from their parent (aka UN member) nation.  Some may qualify thanks the the crazy-quilt other rule about 350km from the "parent" capital; I leave that to the DXCC lobbist-for-a-new-one groups.  There have been arguments advanced that Kure Island doesn't really qualify and is there because of a mis-measurement or bad chart that somebody relied upon once upon a time.  Don't know, but would have to be evaluated, hard, for the list of "wouldn't make the cut if we are starting over" list.

In brief, a lot of "separation by water" may not make the cut these days if we took a harder look at them.

ZC4 is questionable as the criteria state that any sort of DMZ is not supposed to be an "entity".

Spratley and Western Sahara are only there because we passed a special rule for each of them.  Ditto 4U1ITU.  So, while I suppose they remain on the proposed review, they are kind of dubious because we had to special case them to begin with. 

I am not suggesting which "definitively" would be in or out, but these are some of the more obvious cases that would have to be re-examined.

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WO7R

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Re: When did you last work a new one,
« Reply #50 on: January 03, 2023, 07:05:21 AM »

I think, too, that one of the reasons the rules are so creaky is that they grew up over time to satisfy (in some cases) the needs of the moment.

Particularly, for a long time, someone "lawyering" in a new entity was a real possibility.  It was a strange and exciting idea -- maybe a "new one" could be found.

We did manage to decide that Swains, for instance, qualified in the fairly recent past.  But, especially as we aren't going to consider any of the Antarctic regions south of 60 degrees latitude (who knows how many more godforsaken, uninhabitable rocks would qualify without that rule), it seems likely we have now, as of the admission of Swains, admitted the last sufficiently remote landmass our rule book allows, absent some exceptionally sharp examination of Google Earth or something.

For most of the history of DXCC, this wasn't so.  There was a reasonably steady stream of entities added because someone's eagle eye realized that so-and-so an Island or Island Chain should count separately.  But, that "land rush" is now over and I don't know what the influence of that might be over time.  What is and isn't DX is a social decision in the end but it's only fairly recently that we had a DX that had to wait for the next Belin wall to fall to change the list. 

If DXCC was strictly political (as in "UN seats" or some such) the list was always gong to be much smaller than it is.  And, arguably unfair.  Calling the US and all of its far flung possessions "one entity" was never really going to create a satisfactory definition of DX; that was recognized by De Soto himself.  So, the criteria would have to be a little creaky so as to allow Hawaii to be separate but not what IOTA calls "US Coastal Islands."  But, I thing we are basically done "lawyering" some new godforsaken rock onto the list.  Even the various islands that the Chinese are enlarging in the Sea of China are accounted for already, for instance.
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K1JX

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Re: When did you last work a new one,
« Reply #51 on: January 03, 2023, 07:41:12 AM »

I think, too, that one of the reasons the rules are so creaky is that they grew up over time to satisfy (in some cases) the needs of the moment.

Particularly, for a long time, someone "lawyering" in a new entity was a real possibility.  It was a strange and exciting idea -- maybe a "new one" could be found.

So, maybe, one kind of summary might be that the rules are not arbitrary enough.  Too fluid. 

I think this is why the Maidenhead grid square concept has been so successful for VHF operation.  It's entirely arbitrary based on geography and nothing else.  A grid square somewhere on the outer end of Cape Cod is almost as rare as the one Crozet is located in.  You might live less than 300 miles away from a very rare grid square because it's either in the water, out in the wilderness, or just doesn't have many or any hams there.  People really are challenged to get the FFMA award, and that's entirely in North America.

But, the grid square concept never has caught on for HF operation.  Probably lots of reasons why.  Like, maybe, it's too arbitrary and can't be lawyered.

So, now many of us just have to wait for a DXCC entity to be activated.  Based on the historical trends and the way the world has evolved over even the past decade, somebody who started chasing DXCC in 2015 has low odds of making the Honor Roll.  Too many countries are just plain off-limits now, for one reason or another.  Just as a reference, there's been a lot fewer than 300 DXCC countries active in the past five years.  Is this a trend?  Who knows?

Making the DXCC Honor Roll has always been really hard.  Go back 50 years and look at the list - it was pretty short.  There was a funny blip on this for about twenty years when all sorts of countries had expeditions activate them, so the Honor Roll list now is pretty long.  I think that may have distorted things a lot.

Good for the DX'ers who were able to take advantage of that blip.  Can't and shouldn't take that away from them.  Everybody else might be stuck, though.

That was my yearly quota of philosophy.
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K5PS

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Re: When did you last work a new one,
« Reply #52 on: January 03, 2023, 08:38:41 AM »

Worked FT8WW for ATNO #327 (current) on 30m FT8. Hope for a chance to get them on more bands and modes.

An added bonus was that we were each others' first QSO for 2023; logged 2023-01-01 0000z.
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VE3PP

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Re: When did you last work a new one,
« Reply #53 on: January 03, 2023, 03:48:11 PM »

Last night, 3C3CA on 30 Meter FT8.
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ZL1BBW

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Re: When did you last work a new one,
« Reply #54 on: January 03, 2023, 05:18:20 PM »

How many of the "countries" in the British Isles would remain?  On what serious grounds are Wales and Scotland separate?  Until they actually have an independent parliament and UN Seat (neither seems on offer yet), those would seem dubious.


Both Scotland and Wales have their own parliament.


Scottish Parliament | Scottish Parliament Websitehttps://www.parliament.scot

Welsh Parliament   https://senedd.wales/

Then there are the Channel Islands, these are totally separate.  Also they are very handy getaways, if you need to be out  Englad for IRD purposes.

With Hi Res satellite mapping, it would be a desktop exercise to redefine what is and isn't above water any longer, and safely as well, without people taking pot shots at you.
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KT4QD

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Re: When did you last work a new one,
« Reply #55 on: January 03, 2023, 05:53:54 PM »

Yesterday.  Kenya. 
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WO7R

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Re: When did you last work a new one,
« Reply #56 on: January 03, 2023, 10:06:23 PM »

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Both Scotland and Wales have their own parliament.

True, but New York State has its own legislature, too.

There is a meaningful Scottish Independence movement and they seem to know the difference between real independence and being a provincial government, despite a non-trivial amount of home rule these days.

They might actually achieve actual independence someday, too.  But that day is not today.
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WO7R

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Re: When did you last work a new one,
« Reply #57 on: January 03, 2023, 10:17:56 PM »

Quote
But, the grid square concept never has caught on for HF operation.  Probably lots of reasons why.  Like, maybe, it's too arbitrary and can't be lawyered.

Well, a lot of things.

First off, for HF, there are way too many grids.  The CQ Organization has its "field" award, which is for the first two letters of the grid.  Surprisingly, that turns out to be a workable challenge compared to fields.  I've actually got fairly high achievement, mixed, in that one and even bothered to get credit for it.

In theory, you could work a lot of /MM on the CQ Field Award.  In practice, I have found, most boats most of the time hug the shore, so it is harder than it looks to get "fields" that are purely water fields.

That leaves the relatively small amount of fields that have at least some land in them.  They consider a score of around 172 or more fields to be a real good achievement.  And, in fact, it is.

Still, most of you are probably starting to fall asleep, because you don't care.

Why, old fashioned Worked All States is almost certainly far more popular than the CQ Field Award.  WAZ, another non-political division of the world, is reasonably popular, but not as popular as DXCC and maybe less popular even than WAS, at least when it comes to actual applications.

I suspect that, a bit counter-intuitively, we humans actually prefer to divide the world up into "political" entities, maybe because of rather than despite the headaches it can cause.  Something about a grid or a field is maybe kind of cold blooded in the end.

Grids work for VHF simply because, on balance, the range is shorter and therefore the disparity between stations is far greater than it is for DXCC on HF.  So, grids caught on there.  But I know a lot of field chasers who also diligently chase DXCCs, even in places where it is far easier to make HF Honor Roll than a basic 6m DXCC.
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W1VT

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Re: When did you last work a new one,
« Reply #58 on: January 04, 2023, 07:29:05 AM »

I did a lot of VHF and microwave work in the mid 1990s, after the newness of grid squares had worn off.
Chasing states was still popular on the East Coast.  I'd get big pileups on 2M from Mt Equinox VT on a non-contest weekend.
I remember a contact between K3DEL and W1VT (Vermont) on 2M SSB.  I recall someone chasing me on 23cm from DE.

I got FT8WW on 30M for a sorta new one.  I recall working Crozet from Hawaii running QRP in the 1980s.
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