[Dx-qsl] 7O1YGF, 7O1A

[jcowens1 at comcast.net]

Let me see if I have this correct now. In each case,  a group of amateuer radio operators (doesn't matter who or which country) decides they are going to help the many deserving ones of us by activating the difficult country of Yemen. 

They search for the authorizing or licensing agency for this kind of operation, get permission from someone or some department that says they are the ones that have the authority, and they tell you to go ahead and do it.  Then they suffer the expense, logistical nightmares and personal risk toconduct the operation. I am sure it is no picnic doing this kind of thing in Yemen  Then they print these expensive QSL cards and labor for hours to get them mailed out to us, all in the interest of misrepresenting themselves and fooling all us of into thinking we had a "good one". Joke's on you.

Got to be honest with you in saying that it has to be a real chore finding out who is the licensing or authorizing agency in a country like Yemen. What are the odds of getting it right the first time? Now Bernie and Ron have put themselves right in the middle of this by defending the DXCC decision to reject these operations. Bernie doesn't have to sweat it as he already has 3 confirmed ones in the box. That sure makes me feel better about it. The 7O1YGF (the Yemen German Friendship operation - apparently not so friendly??) never did turn in any documentation to DXCC at all per the defenders. The 7O1A operation didn't know the capital of Yemen is Sana and not Aden and will thus be punished. 

So the obvious conclusion to this has to be that the individual operators of these 2 operations were the ones who frauded us and we should take them to task for it. Public flogging seem appropriate. 

Given the circumstances, trying to conduct a properly authorized operation of this type in Yemen has to be a monumental, if not impossible task. I think the DXCC committee should cut some reasonable slack for operations like this that were obviously conducted from there, and with what the operator's or group thought was proper authorization. Not all of these countries allow a "clean as a whistle" authorization. I am sure this kind of "flexibilty" has been applied to other operations. Perhaps the DXCC committee should publish a list of authorizing agencies that must grant permission from a DXCC country for it to be recognized. That would save everyone a lot of  headaches and heartaches. 

John Owens - N7TK