Gift to

79. Late in 1975, as the JARL
looked toward its fiftieth anni ­
versary the following year , the
idea was hatched to make a new
DXCC country which could be
activated by the Japanese.
From this idea came 7J1, which
officially became a DXCC entity
on May 31,1976, and which wa s
put on the air the following
month by a massive JARL effort.
It was neces sary to hire a very
large ship for the trips to the
reef; footings were made in the
coral and a steel scaffold was
constructed. The reef had
turned out to be under water
most of the time! One sub sequent
operation from Okino
Torish ima uti lized the st eel
structure, but the demand continued
and 7J1 st ill appears on
many a DXer's "need list." Opposition
to the creation of thi s
DXCC entity by many DXers was
based on the fact that Okino
Tori shima di d not meet any of
the DXCC country criteria; its
status w as purel y political.
Following the conclusion o f
WARC 79, as 7J1 had served its
purp ose, the matter came to a
head , and in Jun e, 1980, the
ARRL's OX Advisory Committ ee
of volunteers recommended deletion
of 7J1. That was approved
by League management and the
deleti on will becom e effecti ve in
a couple of months. Meanwhile,
QSLs may continue to be submitted
for credit for 7J1.
Other DXAC action in June
con cerned the African "homelands"
of S8 Transkei, H5 Bophuthatswana,
and T4 Venda;
the re have been operations from
all three of these areas, using
the special prefixes, and pressure
has been building for a couple
of years concerning their
DXCC st atus. As th ese places
are recognized by neither the
United Nations nor the Organization
of African Unity, and as
onl y South Africa even has an
embas sy or consulate in them ,
DXAC recommended and ARRL
conc urred th at co untry status at
this time would be inappropriate.
So continue working S8, H5,
and T4, but the QSLs will count
onl y for ZS South Afri ca. If and
w hen country status is granted,
credit for contacts prior t o the
status c hange w il l not be
counted nor ac cepted forDXCC;
there wil l be an official "starting
date" for their OXCC status.
In April, The DX Bulletin (published
in Vernon Cn surveyed its
readers to determine the mostneeded
DXCC entities; over 800
readers responded. Naturally, in
the middle of the survey, in April,
an operation was conduct ed to
one of th e countries w hic h
wo uld have otherwise appeared
in the top ten: Glori oso Island.
The survey showe d BY Chin a
sti ll topping the list , as it has for
the past two decades. The basic
survey results appear elsewhere
in this col umn. Esp ecially interesting
is the breakd own by call
area , show ing that what is super
rare from, say, the east coast of
the USA may be only so-so rare
from the west coast, and vice
versa. Everyone suff ers, maybe
more or less equally!
PHONE BAND EXPANSION
Phone band expansion for
U.S. amateurs is a hot topic, one
affecting DXers drarn atl call y.
The Western Was hingto n OX
Club, among others, has cir culated
a letter requesting that the
ARRL's Board of Directors ca n­
s ider th e matter, and they did indeed,
at their Jul y 24 meeting in
Seattle. The Board has now
come out in favor of petitioning
the FCC to consider the top ic.
While suc h may take several
years and is still open to much
di scu ssion, at least tw o part s of
the pro pos ed changes are clear:
The 20-meter phone band would
be expanded, w it h the 14150­
14175 segment for Extra class,
14175-14200 for Adv anced, and
14200 and above for General
c lass (plus Extra and Advanced ,
of course). The other area of discu
ssi on is the 40-meter band;
when Canadians recei ved permission
last fall to operate 7075­
7100, which is where most of the
rest of the world does its 40­
meter phone operating, U_S. amateurs,
contesters and DXers in
particular, felt left out. Expect
any phone band expansion proposal
to include this prim e terri ­
t ory for U.S. amateurs, probably
Extra class only.
With th ose band s at 10, 18,
and 24 MHz from WARC of a
year ago still just a dream for
amateurs worldw ide, don't expect
action on phone band expansion
to happen soon . Discu
ssions are still underway to
decide if the new frequen cies
from WARC are to be wide open ,
mode re stricted, class restricted,
etc . Let's just hope we
get those new band s by the time
the suns pots recede in a couple
of years!
ARRL OX CONTEST
Last fall, in thi s column, we
carried on about new rules for
the ARRL International OX Competition,
rules w hic h were t o
take effect in March, 1980, rules
whi ch were rammed down contesters'
throats without prop er
di scu ssion and without allowing
time fo r due consideration of
their impact.
What the acti on amou nted to
was a total change in the basi s
for the contest, an acti vit y with a
40-year hist ory. The contest was
run last March under the new
rules , comments were then digested
by the ARRL and by their
Cont est Advisory Committee,
and the CAC voted in June to
rec ommend that the major
change in the rules, allowing
OX-to-DX cont acts, be rescinded.
So, next year, th e activity will
be the same as in 1980, except
that it will be "the wo rld working
the U.S. and Canada" only. That
was the original intent in th e
1930s and apparentl y contesters
felt it was a valid basis for an
operating activity. Singl e-band
competition, another change for
1980, will be retained.
JULY OX HAPPENINGS
Guiseppe De Gasperin 12YDX
operated three weeks f rom
Somalia, signing 6000X, when
time from his agri cultural consult
ant duties permitted. Using
low power, a vertical, and fighting
poor band condit ions, he
worked 20 and 15 meters on
both sse and CW oW it h 60WDX
still active as this is written,
those west of the Mississippi
River were doing their best, but
many w ill probably go awa y
without Somalia's arrow in their
DXCC qui vers, due primarily to
the lousy band c ond it ions .
Those lucky enough to have
made the contact QSL to 12YAE,
..1. .£ ~ A. .§.
BY 87 (1) BY 89 (1) BY 95 (1) BY 84 (1) BY 89 (1)
XZ 83 (3) XU 83 (8) VS9K 93 (2) VS9K 79 (2) VS9K 88(2)
VS9K 80 (2) XZ 78 (3) 7090 (7) XZ 78 (3) VU-L 88 (5)
VK9H 79 (6) VK9H 78 (6) VU-A 90 (10) VK9H 75 (6) ZA 85 (4)
XU 79 (8) VS9K 79 (2) XZ 88 (3) XU 75 (8) XZ 82 (3)
VU-L 73 (5) FB8W 78 (9) ZA 88 (4) ZA 74 (4) VK9H 80 (6)
FB8W 73 (9) VU-L 76 (5) VK9H 88 (6) FB8W 73 (9) FB8W 78 (9)
ZA 70 (4) ZA 70 (4) XU 88 (8) VU-L 71 (5) VU-A 78 (10)
7088 (7) VU-A 70 (10) FB8W 88 (9) VU-A 67 (10) FR-G 77 (15)
VU-A 68 (10) 7J 69 (25) VU·L 85 (5) 70 65 (7) XU 75 (8)
.§. L .a J!. .l.
VS9K 82 (2) VS9K 98 (2) BY 91 (1) BY 92 (1) BY 88 (1)
7082 (7) ZA 84 (4) XZ 86 (3) VS9K 91 (2) VS9K 87 (2)
ZA 81 (4) BY 82 (1) VU-L 86 (5) XZ 85 (3) ZA 85 (4)
VU-L 78 (5) VU·L 75 (5) VK9H 84 (6) ZA 82 (4) XZ 83 (3)
BY 76 (1) 7075 (7) VS9K 83 (2) VU-L 78 (5) VK9H 82 (6)
VK9H 73 (6) 3Y 76 (12) ZA 83 (4) VK9H 78 (6) 7075 (7)
XZ 72 (3) HK-M 73 (18) 7079 (7) XU 78 (8) VU-A 75 (10)
FRIE 72 (14) XZ 71 (3) XU 76 (8) 7077(7) VU·L 73 (5)
FRIG 71 (15) FR/E 71 (14) FB8W 74 (9) FB8W 69 (9) 3X 73 (13)
HK-M 70 (18) CEDX 67 (11) VU-A 74 (10) CEDX 68 (11) XU 70 (8)
Table 2. TMs breakdown of the survey results, for the ten U.S. call areas only, shows the difference
in needs on a geographical basis. The first number is the percentage of survey respondents
needing each country; in parentheses is the rank that country had in the overall survey.
73 Magaz;ne • October, 1980 221