[OKDXA] P5DX

[Coy Day]

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P5DX what could have been


Posted about 19 hours ago | 1 comment






from N6PSE blog


P5DX-what could have been
.

As a Blogger, my blog represents my thoughts and my views only.  The
content of this Blog does not represent anyone else but me.

This morning, I had to cancel a DXpedition.  It was one of the hardest
decisions of my life.  It was not for lack of permission, it was not for
lack of a team and equipment willing to go.

The prospect of a P5 activation brings out the worst in this hobby.  The
posers, the nuts, the ill-informed and the opinionated. But in the end, it
mostly came down to a surprising lack of support and lack of funding from
some of the world’s paramount DX foundations when asked to fund grants to
the world’s #1 Most Wanted Entity.

This is the story of P5DX.

Throughout several years of ongoing negotiations, the North Koreans have
told us that they have never before given permission for an amateur radio
activity within the DPRK.  Of course we don’t know if this is true or not
as others have gone before us and have been approved for DXCC, but this is
what we were told.  We had hoped to be the first large DXpedition with
clear and unambiguous proof that we were active within the country and
with real evidence of permission.  After tireless efforts, we finally had
a letter of invitation in hand from DPRK authorities inviting us into the
country as the first-ever large scale amateur radio event.

In April, 2013, we informed the world of our “P5 Project”.  We were making
numerous visits to the DPRK and establishing real contacts.  We were
spending thousands of dollars of our family’s money shuttling back and
forth from our homes to Pyongyang, and we wanted to give hope to the DX
Community that an operation might actually take place.

All told, we made nine visits to the DPRK.  Despite several false leads,
for the most part our efforts seemed pointless, unproductive and futile.

Until recently, when we finally got our big break.

As part of our P5 Project, we retained an expert in all things North Korea
to work and lobby on our behalf.  Our “Emissary” was very interested in
our project and asked for no money from us.  Our “Emissary” has strong
relationships within the DPRK and regularly travels there.

In February 2016, our Emissary contacted us while we were on the
VP8STI/VP8SGI DXpedition.  Our Emissary had been communicating with
relevant DPRK officials and sensed a new willingness to consider our
proposal.

We renewed our proposal and the talks continued.  When we returned home,
we learned that we were very close to having complete permission.  After a
couple more months of back and forth negotiations, the DPRK agreed to a
ten day amateur radio activity with three radios and up to 20 team
members.  A venue was investigated and approved.

Like the 2012 7O6T Dxpedition, the DPRK officials wanted to showcase a new
resort and offered it as a DXpedition location.  Within a span of a few
weeks our Emissary and one of our team leaders made a visit to Pyongyang
to have face to face meetings with high level officials.  These officials
had been involved in Dennis Rodman’s visit as well as the just-completed
Pyongyang marathon race.  Now that the marathon was over, we had their
full attention and cooperation.  Things were moving fast.

The DPRK officials stipulated that only three Americans could be on the
team and no Japanese, but beyond that we were given the green light to
begin assembling a team of varying nationalities from Europe, South
America, and Oceania.

The DPRK officials insisted on no publicity in advance of us going on the
air, so everyone joining our team was sworn to secrecy.  A website was
developed but would not be launched until we were live and on the air
within the DPRK.  It was agreed that we would use the call sign P5DX.

Our last major hurdle was that the DPRK was asking for a very large fee to
be paid for the permissions at various government levels and ministries to
operate from within the DPRK.  It is a very common practice for various
governments throughout the world to request a fee to be paid for
DXpedition permission and licensing. These fees are typically several
thousand dollars in many Third World countries.   As we would see, the
DPRK fee would be considerably more.

While still trying to keep everything a secret, the largeness of this fee
required that we approach several of the biggest amateur radio foundations
for financial grants to help us with our tremendous up-front costs.

We also consulted with an international attorney who counseled us how to
avoid becoming entangled in violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices
Act.  Essentially, it is a serious crime for Americans to bribe foreign
government officials.  However, it is not a crime for Americans to be
charged extra fees to visit a foreign country.  All of our fees would be
paid directly to a China-based tour company and no direct exchange would
take place with the North Koreans.

Given the outpouring of support that these amateur radio consortia had
given to lesser-needed entities in the past, it never occurred to us that
they would resist supporting a trip to P5.  One organization actually said
that we didn’t need their funding because we could charge whatever we
wanted for the QSLs!   It was a disheartening revelation that they seemed
more interested in our ability to raise funds by charging high fees later
for confirmation “because we can” rather than in assisting a major
DXpedition that was in dire need of immediate pre-departure funding to
pull it off.  We later proposed that they merely pledge an amount to be
donated if we were successful and our operation was accredited by the DXCC
staff, thus giving them an easy way out if they were not pleased with our
performance.  This still did not sway them.  Here we were, just a couple
of weeks away from the first authorized multinational DXpedition from the
world’s most needed country, and we were told we were on our own.  I never
thought it would come to this.

I have tremendous respect for these organizations and I am deeply
disappointed that they could not find a way to support our plans.

This left my Co-Leader, David-K3LP and I no other recourse but to drain
our own personal retirement savings to provide the bulk of our funding. 
In addition to our upfront license fees, we needed to buy radios, power
supplies, coax, antennas and many more items. We purchased roughly $16,000
in equipment and we spent almost $4000 to ship it FedEx to Beijing to our
staging area, where it still sits as I write this Blog.

We continued to discreetly build our team.  Many potential team members
were not able to travel to the DPRK with such short notice, which was
understandable.  We worked very hard and we were glad that we were able to
complete a final team of 14 very able operators by the time the deadline
to apply for our DPRK visas was upon us.  Our plans continued to come
together and everyone booked their flights to Beijing.  A hotel in China
was secured for our pre-DXpedition briefings.  Reservations with Air
Koryo, the DPRK’s national airline, were made.  Less than two weeks to go
now.  We were delighted that everyone seemed to respect our need for
confidentiality.  Nothing had been leaked.

But that euphoria would not last.  Much to our disappointment, April 19
featured the first of many betrayals of our trust when a blogger opined
that he was “hearing rumblings of a P5 activation by 10 US/EU Ops planned
for May 2016”.   Someone talked.  These leaks came almost immediately
after our attempts to recruit our team and to get grant funds, despite our
repeated insistence that our plans not be made public.  And soon the
repercussions of that would unravel our plans and cost tens of thousands
of DXers a possible contact with P5.

Within a short time, we were contacted by numerous other amateur radio
websites and bloggers asking if we were the ones involved in these rumors.
 We tried not to comment at all, but the rumors would not go away. 
Finally we admitted we might be making progress but begged for discretion,
saying that negotiations were still ongoing and that one of the conditions
of the trip was that we not go public until we were ready to go on the
air.  But in pursuit of their own interests in having a “scoop”, most
re-published the unsubstantiated rumors and, as expected, this brought out
the crazies and every armchair DXer with an opinion chimed in.

One eHam commenter posted that if all, or some of us were to wind up in a
North Korean gulag, that none of us would have his sympathy.  We were
powerless to act or respond and we kept our heads down and focused on
moving forward.  Within days, all four Web and Email based DX news sources
ran with the rumors, providing links to the original Blogger. All of this
was in defiance of the directive of the DPRK officials that we make no
pre-event publicity. All of this was working against our efforts.

The Internet ramblings continued and more and more information was shared.
 Things began to spiral out of control.  Impostors pirated my call sign
and made numerous posts on DX Summit revealing more of our plans. I had to
ask DX Summit to block the use of my call sign after that.

On April 23, just a week before our departure to Beijing and then into
Pyongyang, our Emissary traveled to Pyongyang to make final arrangements
and obtain our visas.  On April 24, our Emissary alerted us that all of
the visas were approved with a couple notable exceptions, myself included.

I will never know why my DPRK visa request was refused.  I had been to the
DPRK on two previous visits and everything was quite positive. It is
possible that my pirated call-sign on DX Summit was seen by the DPRK
authorities who may have viewed it as a violation of their trust and me
not keeping quiet.   But i feel I know where the real blame lies.

As I was one of the team members bringing a significant amount of
equipment to Beijing with me as well as providing a major portion of the
upfront funding from my own personal savings, this proved to be an
insurmountable problem.  I could not devote a sizable chunk of my life
savings for a project that I could no longer participate in.

And since we received absolutely no financial support from the DX
foundations we courted for funding despite our desperate pleas for
assistance, we decided we had no choice but to cancel the P5DX DXpedition.
 We waited another 24 hours hoping for a miracle that would never come
before finally sending word to Pyongyang to ask our Emissary to inform the
DPRK officials of our decision to terminate the project.

At this time, we have a significant amount of equipment waiting for us in
Beijing that we shipped a few weeks ago and that would consume another
several thousand dollars to ship back.  We all have full-fare
non-refundable flights that we have to cancel at considerable expense. 
The financial losses suffered by Intrepid DX and all of our team members
are substantial.

I can’t help but feel a tremendous sense of frustration that someone felt
the need to betray our request for confidentiality by blabbing about our
plans to others, and by those who published these rumors despite being
told this would be counterproductive.   I am also certain that if some of
the large foundations that we had approached had funded our grant request,
the remaining team members who already had visas cleared would have been
able to continue on to the DPRK and conduct a successful CW/SSB/RTTY
activation.

Let me reiterate.  We had permission.  We had a team.  We had all
necessary equipment staged in Beijing.  We had a venue in North Korea.  We
had flights and hotels to China and the DPRK confirmed.

What we did not have was the support of those we asked to remain quiet,
nor the support of anyone we asked for help with funding.   This could
have been a DXpedition for the record books.

But now we will never know.

What do you think?

Paul N6PSE

-- 
Coy Day, N5OK
20685 SW 29
Union City, OK 73090
405-483-5632