[OKDXA] P5DX

[Rick Vidmar K9KK]

Yes there is.


On 4/27/2016 1:05 PM, Coy Day wrote:
> There's a reason it is the number one needed entity.
> -----------------
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> P5DX what could have been…
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> Posted about 19 hours ago | 1 comment
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> from N6PSE blog
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> 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
>