At the April meeting during a little discussion on DXing I brought up my pet peeve. Scarborough Reef. It’s in the South China Sea at approx 117E and 13N and you probably won’t find it on run-of-the-mill maps. It is one of the 3 countries I don’t yet have.

A group of crazies went there in 1994 but bad weather apparently cut the operation short, in fact I don’t think they made any contacts, possibly a few. However another bunch went there in 1995, set up stations on 3 different rocks and made many contacts using BS7H (unfortunately none with me Hi). Upon completion they submitted an application to the DXAC (DX Advisory Board) for new country status.

DXAC voted against it 9 to 7. It was appealed to the ARRL awards committee who voted unanimously in favour. It then finished up in the hands of the Membership Services Committee who voted 5 to 2 in favour and it was subsequently added to the list. I tend to think the people voting in favour worked them while those voting against didn’t Hi

Ownership of this particular ‘country?’ is disputed, with China, Taiwan and The Philippines laying claim to it. In 1997 another group visited the place and after two days or so were chased off by a couple of Philippine gunboats. There has been no activity from there since then.

My argument is it shouldn’t have been on the list in the first place, just a few rocks jutting out of the ocean which, with any type of sea running would be under water, (obviously a fair weather operation only). A short time ago the rules defining ‘countries’ for DXCC purposes were drastically changed even to the point of calling them ‘Entities’ rather than countries, presumably to stop arguments as to size etc.

If you want an exercise in confusion, read the new definitions of ‘Entity’ in the DXCC rules.

Under the present rules, Scarborough Reef, and I suspect some other reefs or shoals, would not qualify. To my mind the sensible thing to have done was delete any of these so-called new countries which didn’t then qualify. It would be no great hardship to DXers who already had the country worked because they still count in overall totals.