Re: [HCDX]: R.Vatican - S.Maria de Galeria site

[Don Moore <mooredxer@xxxxxxxxx>]

Re Santa Maria de Galeria and Vatican City as distinct
radio countries...

I suggested this to the NASWA Country List Committee
several years ago. They felt that the terrtories were too
close to be considered different countries, even though
they are distinct places.

A similar situation is Radio For Peace International, which
is on land that the Costa Rican government has ceded to the
United Nations. Although Costa Rica continues to provide
basic services, such as police protection, the land
officially belongs to the U.N. (or so it was explained to
me on a 1990 visit). The NASWA committee felt the status of
this UN enclave was too vague for country status. In
retrospect, the decision was with good reason I would say.
(By contrast, the UN property in New York has its own
security force and functions more as an independent
political entity. It also doesn't have any SW stations
inside that territory.)

For those not familiar with the NASWA list, any entity that
was a country or distinct territory at any time after 1945
is counted as a country. Thus, logging Radio Medi Un counts
as Spanish Morocco, even though this territory has long
since been integrated into (former French) Morocco. In
another example, southeastern Nigeria still counts as
Biafra (the breakaway republic of the late 1960s). Some
question this policy, but it does put newer DXers on a more
even level with old-time DXers. 

Anyway, under the 1945 rule, a third possible country I had
suggested at the same time was British Cameroons. Cameroons
was two territories - French and British - until
independence around 1960. The current Buea station is
located in what was British Cameroons. The Country List
commitee, however, decided not to make British Cameroons a
distinct NASWA radio country on the grounds that there was
no shortwave station in British Cameroons prior to the
merger with French Cameroons. 

Although this policy had never been stated before, it seems
resaonable ... except it doesn't explain why shortly
afterwards they gave NASWA country status to Sikkim. Sikkim
was a small independent kingdom in the Himilayas prior to
being incorporated into India in the 1970s. A shortwave
station went on the air there in the early 1990s. There was
no radio at all in Sikkim prior to it joining India.
British Cameroons at least had a medium wave station, even
if it didn't have shortwave. I have never figured this
decision out. 

I don't want to sound critical. The NASWA country committee
was criticized for being slow to react on issues in the
1980s. However, in the past several years they have been
very active and even proactive, and I think are doing a
good job. However, debating the merits of country status is
a complex thing and one can always question decisions made
in a  particular situation, such as the Vatican case or
British Cameroons. Personally, I wish DXers would put more
emphasis on counting stations heard instead of countries
heard. Of course, that does give an advantage to those who
like to DX Latin America...

Don Moore     mooredxer@xxxxxxxxx

===
Don Moore     mooredxer@xxxxxxxxx
Radio: http://www.swl.net/patepluma   
Family History: http://members.xoom.com/patepluma
General: http://members.tripod.com/donmoore
_________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is a message from Don Moore <mooredxer@xxxxxxxxx>
to hard-core-dx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx list. To unsubscribe the list, send
"unsubscribe hard-core-dx" in mail body to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
For more information, please check http://www.kotalampi.com/hard-core-dx/
or email Risto Kotalampi, risto@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
------------------------------------------------------------------------