Urb, as always, raises some good points, and I find myself pretty much in agreement with his sentiments.
However, I don't think that the issue is "what is DX?" so much as it is "what is a DXCC entity?" There IS a difference. In other words, if Mt. Athos, SMOM, 4U1UN, 4U1ITU, M-V Island, and so on are removed from the DXCC or WAE or whatever lists... they're still DX, just not additional counters in our specialized little game here. Now, whether or not these, shall we say, unusual entities should have been given their separate recognition (for whatever reason based on the DXCC rules at the time of recognition) is academic; they have the recognition. That other, similar potential entities (such as 4U1VIC and 4U1WB) have not received similar recognition (again, for whatever reason based on the rules at the time recognition was applied for) is also academic; they ain't gonna get it, and won't unless the existing rules are modified. Should they be? That, as they say, is the rub. In other words, the system is as fair as possible considering time, changing politics, and changing rules. But it is not and never will be 100% "fair." To get a little more specific for a moment: I do not know if the Powers That Be on SV/A would prefer not having separate recognition for Mt. Athos from Greece for DXCC purposes; but considering that, despite the importance of the SV/A counter in our game to us, it is at best a distraction to them that they could do without. And I think we all forget to some degree sometimes that Monk Apollo is there for many other purposes than giving us all a new DXCC band/mode entity. To that extent, I would agree with Urb that we have sometimes been spoiled by the 20/30/40K QSO DXpeditions of late. Nevertheless, Mt. Athos is a DXCC entity, and so long as it remains so, activity from there will be coveted. And many won't be fortunate enough to work it. So it goes; it is simply something that we will have to learn to accept. Otherwise, we run the risk that the Powers That Be will simply revoke Monk Apollo's permission to operate from SV/A, and will not permit anyone else to do so... and we will all be worse off for it. (Just consider that at least one low-level bureaucrat has allegedly written the ARRL to have Navassa & Desecheo removed from the list so that they won't have to deal with all of the amateurs asking for permission to land & operate from there -- nice to know it's ok for the illegal fishermen, drug dealers, pirates, and so on to land there but those of us who follow the rules and ask nicely first get the proverbial bureaucratic shaft, but I digress...) Remember too that even if you could make a case for removing SV/A and some of the other "oddballs" from the list, under the current rules, the entity does NOT move to the "Deleted" list but disappears for all time as if it never were -- the one portion of the update I did not and do not agree with. You can just imagine the outcry from all of those losing that counter for all time -- I'd bet it would surpass the current grumbling from a few of those of us who haven't worked or confirmed it yet. Finally, to address Urb's last question, taking into consideration that despite the alleged waning interest in and number of licensed / active amateurs in the world today... DX is probably easier for most of us to work and confirm today than it was or would have been 50 years ago. So yes, some of us are a little spoiled. (But I'll tell you, I was amazed at how much fun it was, my first ventures onto 17 and 12 meters, to work some of the "common" DX entities for the first times on these bands -- and without benefit of linear, beam, net, or cluster either.) So, whaddya think about trying to shift our focus from arguing about the merits of whether or not a particular entity should or should not be on the list to trying to help get those less active entities QRV? 73, ron wn3vaw AJ: "Did you ever hear of Evel Kneival?" Lev: "I never saw Star Wars" -- Armageddon ----- Original Message ----- From: "Urb LeJeune" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, July 10, 2003 11:34 AM Subject: [DX-CHAT] What is DX? I totally accept the fact that I'm an old fart and that the condition colors (and reduces) my thinking process. Having said that I fail to understand some of the thinking express during the recent new country/ Mt. Athos threads. There is a danger in any discussion that the definitions of key terms may not be universally shared. To wit, what do we mean by DX? To be sure, at one time DX was defined by distance, this is still a valid criterion on VHF and especially UHF bands. I don't think that defination is valid any longer. I have a converted CB SSB rig on ten meters. There is no question that at some point I have put a S9 signal at an point on this planet. If someone was there, and listening for me, I could have easily worked them. The same holds for anyone reading this message. So the distance test fails for DX as we know it. I would hope we would all agree that our attraction to DXing has at it's base the element of difficulty. The difficulty can take many form, competition, propagation, and lack of activity from a particular DX entity. Since there is a competitive element, a measurement metric is involved. Many of us have chosen a country count as that metric. If that's true, why difference does it make what the countries are as long as we all share a common list. Why should it make any difference if the "country" is an "office building" in NYC or a small group of buildings surrounded by Greece? Indeed, why should on-the-air activity make any difference in the recognition of country status? It seem to me this thread (and I contributed to a portion of it) really is about how to create a new country and how to remove a country that is already there. It the first case, we already have a set of rules. If you don't like the rules, lobby to change them but there are rules. In the later case it would seem to me that any country not meeting the test of the current rules should be removed. We are then left with something approaching what we have now. An all time score and I score base on the currently available countries. If you live long enough you may well become number one on the first list. I started DXing in the late 50s and things have changed. I'm not necessarily saying the old way was better (although I really do believe it was.) Back then few DXers ran a KW, many didn't have a beam, and there were no packet clusters, lists, and DXpeditions (as we now know them) were relatively rare. At gatherings of DXers that talk center on how to work some station that show up about twice a year for about an hour each time (AC5PN) or who would once in a while show up in a French speaking phone net in the then DX portion on the upper end of 20 meter phone (FW8AA.) Can it be that we have become spoiled by high power, big antennas, packet clusters, and DXpeditions having 40K contact in a few day? Urb, W2DEC Subscribe/unsubscribe, feedback, FAQ, problems http://njdxa.org/dx-chat To post a message, DX related items only, [EMAIL PROTECTED] This is the DX-CHAT reflector sponsored by the NJDXA http://njdxa.org Subscribe/unsubscribe, feedback, FAQ, problems http://njdxa.org/dx-chat To post a message, DX related items only, [EMAIL PROTECTED] This is the DX-CHAT reflector sponsored by the NJDXA http://njdxa.org
