Jim,
Thanks for the questions about the awards.... As chair of the Awards
Committee, I'll try to answer.
First, though the Stations Heard are still listed under Domestic Awards,
the intent is that all regularly licensed medium wave broadcast stations,
where ever located, count for those awards.
We do use the IRCA Countries List for determining what is a valid radio
country, for the Countries Heard Awards.
As far as just what is Latin America.... it's South America plus what is
listed in the WRTH section called "Central America, Caribbean and
Mexico."
Hey, THANKS for asking and send in those award applications to Rob! aka
"Robert S.Ross VA3SW"
<va3sw@...>
John Bryant
for the Awards Committee
As far as what is "really" Latin America"?
Wars have been fought....
At 06:05 PM 1/19/2010 +0000, jim_kr1s wrote:
toggle quoted messageShow quoted text
The ULR Awards Committee has elected to use the IRCA Countries List.
The
most-recent version I could find online is
http://www.geocities.com/amlogbook/newmembers/country.htm , stated
as
updated in 2008. What's interesting about the List is the inclusion
of
Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico as separate countries. (Note, too,
that
the Isle of Man, England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales are considered
separate countries, though under the same monarch and using the same
currency, and all called "UK" by people who aren't afraid to
tick off
the Irish, Scots or Welsh.)
The ARRL DXCC Countries List, for ham-radio operators, follows
similar
criteria, and pre-dates IRCA's list. When I wrote "The DXCC
Handbook"
(
http://kr1s.kearman.com/html/books.html ) for ARRL a few years ago,
I
tried to explain the various criteria; the linked IRCA List also has
explanations. It's a daunting task! The ham-radio list is even more
confusing, because hams can set up a station in an uninhabited place
where you'd never find a broadcast station, and it counts as an
"entity," a term ARRL has adopted in lieu of
"country," as so many
counters are not actual countries.
The bottom line is, radio countries lists don't always follow
political
realities. But everyone is working from the same list, and from the
U.S., logging Puerto Rico, Alaska or Hawaii is always fun, so why
not
count them?
73,
Jim, KR1S
http://qrp.kearman.com/
