Re: [HCDX]: Countries list

[Ralph Brandi <ralph@xxxxxxxxxx>]

>>I recall that the NASWA list lists only those countries that have
>>shortwave activity. Example: Puerto Rico was added to the list last year
>>(or 1997?) when the AFRTS SW relay in Puerto Rico started.

Puerto Rico was actually added in March of this year.  (See <http://www.anarc.org/naswa/issues/199903/jensen199903.html> for details.)

>On the other side a country that once was on the list will be ever there.
>So I saw a NASWA country list of 1998 with Andorra, Jamaica and Panama (no
>more shortwave) but without San Marino and Liechtenstein (there never was
>BC shortwave. In the same  NASWA list are also countries like Goa or Berlin.

This is a good point.  One of the things NASWA takes pride in with its country list is the idea that "once a country, always a country".  The reasoning behind this is so that old-timers don't have an inherent advantage over newcomers by virtue of being able to count now-deleted countries in their totals.  So, for example, Germany is divided up into East Germany, West Germany, and Berlin.  The NASWA list takes 1945 as its starting point, and in 1945, those three sections of Germany were distinct international entities.  Someone hearing DW from Nauen, Deutschlandfunk from Berlin and Sudwestrundfunk today would still be able to count three countries, just like a veteran who heard Radio Berlin International, RIAS, and Sudwestfunk years ago, rather than just being able to count a single country.  Hence items like Goa and Berlin, mentioned above.

The NASWA list has a few other oddities, like Indonesia and PNG being divided up into a number of radio countries for no good reason that I've ever been able to divine (I guess that's why I'm not on the Country committee), and the remarkably prescient decision to treat the consituent republics of the U.S.S.R. as though they were separate countries, which of course, they are now. :-)  But all in all, we're pretty happy with our list.

As for the reasons why it's not up on the web yet, yeah, I suppose money was one of them originally.  We printed some copies and were loth to dump them in the wastebasket.  But we've already made our money back on them by now, so it's not a consideration at this point.  More so is a lack of time on the part of our poor, overworked webmaster and the fact that when I do post it, I've got some ideas on how to do it in a potentially more interesting manner than just duplicating the paper version, but doing so requires brushing the rust off my programming skills, which I haven't had time for lately.  I'm probably going to be taking much of December off from work, so maybe I'll have time to work on it then.  Then again, maybe not.  We'll see.

Ralph
-- 
Ralph Brandi  ralph@xxxxxxxxxx  webmaster@xxxxxxxxx  http://www.anarc.org/

Webmaster, Association of North American Radio Clubs

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