A chimera, the US has maintained banned lists, so has every other
country on earth at one time or another. The Israeli hams know this,
otherwise they wouldn't have violated their countries own regulations
and used phoney callsigns. I travel to Cuba for vacations on the
beach, every time I go I have to perform a passport switch in Mexico,
using my American passport to leave the US and my Aussie one to enter
Cuba. It's all part of life.

On Apr 15, 1:22 pm, "policy-ham" wrote:
I just read this on the WVDXA Bulletin Board and it made me ill. What
do you think? Maybe it is time for the ARRL to rethink its DXCC policy
regarding credit for operations with restrictions like this. Even
better yet, radio manufacturers stop supplying free rigs to DX
operations that refuse to contact stations based on politics. If we
cut off the funds and the glory, maybe this kind of discrimination
will finally end.

Louis

[WVDXA] 5A7A -- the Untold Story
w8hc at aol.com w8hc at aol.com
Sat Feb 3 11:26:59 PST 2007

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DXers,
I apologize for the length of this post up front. I'll simply ask
that you draw your own conclusions and respond as you feel the need.
And of course, sometimes no response is a response as well.

Actually, I have hesitated sharing this information for the past
couple months but events in the past week have compelled me to speak
my mind and at the very least, ensure that the DX world is aware of a
situation that I find unbelievably depressing and depressingly
unbelievable, given the fact our hobby is supposed to transcend this
sort of thing.

Let's rewind the tape to November 16, 2006. Excitement abounds as
5A7A hits the airwaves and DXers around the world celebrate this rare
DX entitiy as they enter it into their logbooks. It's been a good
while since a 5A was QRV and the seemilngly relentless pileups bear
witness to the need by the DX world. The operation, headed by a team
of veteran German operators does a first-class job of making sure that
it will be an even longer while before 5A hits any of the Top-10 lists
of needed entities. DXers around the world are literally gorging
themselves on 5A7A QSOs-- all bands and modes! The signals are great
and everyone is having a blast enjoying this great hobby! "Hey, here
comes another new band for me, by golly!" "Aren't they doing a great
job operating the pileups?!!"

Well folks it wasn't quite like that for all the DXers. Some of our
Order didn't get to experience the joy of a 5A7A QSO. Why?? Simply
because of who they are and where they live. You see, they are
Israelis. Yes, that's right, these 4X ham radio operators, these Jews
in Israel cannot be contacted. This was the restriction that the 5A7A
operators accepted from the Libyan licensing authorities before they
even made the first QSO with the rest of the world. They apparently
signed some kind of blood oath that they would not make QSOs with 4X
amateurs. And so, when an excited 4X DX operator called the 5A7A, he
was simply told, "I cannot work you," "We are not allowed to make a
QSO with you."

From November 16 to November 29, 5A7A logged over 112,000 QSOs. You will not find a single 4X station in their on-line log. Oh, there was one up until last week. That was for an 80m contact that Burt Cohen W3GG made during the CQWW CW test with his 4X0G operation. That QSO has since been mysteriously purged from the on-line records. I am curious if it is still in the 5A7A Contest Entry submitted to CQWW authorities however.

During the time that 5A7A was QRV, emails, phone calls and pleas from
several interested sources were made to the ARRL, the Daily DX, CQ
Contest advising of this discriminatory action. It was argued that
the 5A7A should be DQ'd for breaching the "no-politics" code of
conduct that most of us try to adhere to in the hobby. Amazingly, we
were told that we, as opponents of this conduct, were crossing the
political line. Therefore, all the movers and shakers of the DX and
Contest world, in essence said, "No harm, no foul." Let the rest of
the world enjoy this feeding frenzy. It is good for business, of
course. Oh, it was suggested that this sort of thing had happened a
long time ago and that one way the 4X ops might get around this was to
give a modified prefix with their callsign. "This is what has been
done before and perhaps they can contact the QSL manager after the
DXpedition and provide their correct callsign and get their QSLs after
everyone is safely out of the country." As an example, if my callsign
is 4X0WV, I would use "UX0WV" or "VX0WV" to call the 5A7A.

Hey great idea! Use a "modified" callsign.... but under the
circumstances.... Why not! So yes, this is what some of the creative
4X boys did. You can find clever examples in the 5A7A on-line log if
you want to spend the effort. And so now, I know that some of these
4X ops this past week have contacted the 5A7A QSL manager, DL9USA and
have provided him with the information from these "unusual" QSOs with
exact times, callsigns used and frequencies expecting cooperation in
the spirit of the hobby so they can get their QSLs. Everyone can now
be happy, right?

Well, guess what? DL9USA says, "No QSO's, no QSL's to 4X." 5A7A Team
Coordinator Andy DJ7IK was at least somewhat apologetic in his
response, "I'm very sorry that we are not able to send QSL to 4X-
stations, as we got our license with the restriction not to work with
4X. Because we like to keep in touch with our partners in 5A to
support the growth of ham radio in Libya, we accepted this
restriction, knowing that this is not hamlike!"

Poor Andy even seems to recognize that this wasn't in the real spirit
of the hobby.

So this is where it stands folks. This is where I struggle. I wonder
what would have happened if the 5A7A license held the restriction of
"No USA QSOs permitted?" No, it isn't my battle. I should just bow
out of this and say, "Big deal, it's just a stupid hobby. Hey who
really cares about a handful of DXers over in this tiny Middle-easten
country." But I just can't bring myself to take the easy way out.
These guys are fellow ham radio operators, fellow DXers and Contester
and although they would probably be too embarrased to share this
information themselves, I want people to know the truth. In this day
and age where we should place ourselves above the daily BS of politics
in our hobby, we shouldn't have discrimination of any sort. It
doesn't matter if your a Jew, an Arab, a black, a white, a man, a
woman, handicapped, an astronaut, a whatever.... we are all ham radio
operators. We have a common bond in this hobby and it is 2007 for
crying out loud! And so if we start licensing to exclude a nation, or
a group or class of people or religion, then don't we have a problem?
At that point it's time to rethink the priorities and take action.

Again, I apologize for the bandwidth. But I think the DX world needs
to know the rest of this story. I think the 5A7A sponsors need to know
about this too. I'm only one voice. Are there any others out there?
73,
Hal W8HC