[OKDXA] Number One Honor Roll

[Roger Simpson]

Congrats to W5DX on getting to the magic mark of 100 entities. 

One thing about DXing is that is becomes harder to work new countries because eventually the countries you need are only rarely one the air. 

My own experience suggests that I’ll never make it to the top of the Honor Roll.  I need Bouvet, Johnston Island, Kerguelen Island, Pratas Island, San Felix Island, Turkmenistan, and North Korea – DPRK. 

I started chasing DX in 2005 when moving here to Oklahoma City from Silicon Valley. To my knowledge the only DX that was active since 2005 that I did not work was the recent Bouvet operation which was greatly shortened in scope due to the extreme harshness of the environment. I guess the main reason I have not worked most of the countries I need is not because of poor propagation or poor antennas. Instead the limiting factor to working them all seems to be primarily not being able to get permission to get an amateur license and/or permission to enter the DX entity and setup a station.  

The only new DX country I have worked in the last 5 years is Crozet.  

While stacked mono-banders on a 100 tower for each band is nice it seems like the main determinate of working the “hard ones” is not a function of operator skill or equipment but rather geopolitical realities. 

Like the guys in the NCDXA say “DXing Is”.  It is an endeavor where a random walk is sometimes the only path.

I wonder when the most recent year was that the “rarest ten” countries were activated.

73    Roger   K5RKS

Sent from Mail for Windows