Perturbation

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P5: Disease or Sickness?

Posted: 26 Apr 2016 05:48 PM PDT
https://ke9v.net/2016/04/26/p5-disease-or-sickness/


This P5 business has gone off the rails. Presumably, this story broke
during the DX Convention in Visalia and I’ve been ping-ponging from blog to
blog in an effort to piece it all together.

Then the ARRL chimed in today with the headline, Frustrated Funding,
Breached Secrecy Foiled North Korea DXpedition, Group Leader Says.

As it turns out, the situation isn’t really all that difficult to get your
head around, so long as you understand that the fervent desire to activate
the most wanted entity on the planet is a full-on disease, or a sickness.

Of all the places on Earth, few are more risky for travel by Americans. The
region is so unstable that if a nuke popped off there tonight it would be
tomorrow’s headlines but it wouldn’t necessarily be “news�. It’s an
unreliable, unstable government with a madman at the helm that even China
no longer seems to control.

The State Department goes into some incredible detail about all the
horrible things that can happen to US citizens who choose to visit:

Travel by U.S. citizens to North Korea is not routine, and U.S. citizens
have been subject to arrest and long-term detention for actions that would
not be cause for arrest in the United States or other countries. Â*North
Korean authorities have arrested U.S. citizens who entered the DPRK legally
on valid DPRK visas as well as U.S. citizens who accidentally or
intentionally crossed into DPRK territory without valid visas. The
Department of State has received reports of DPRK authorities detaining U.S.
citizens without charges and not allowing them to depart the
country. Â*North Korea has even detained several U.S. citizens who were part
of organized tours. Â*Do not assume that joining a group tour or using a
tour guide will prevent North Korean authorities from detaining you or
arresting you. Â*Efforts by private tour operators to prevent or resolve
past detentions of U.S. citizens in the DPRK have not succeeded in gaining
their release.

And that’s just the first of many paragraphs of detailed, dire warnings
that sane people would heed.

The plan that has fallen apart includes details like paying large amounts
of cash to officials of the DPRK for “permission� to operate from there.

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. Â*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. Â* As we would see, the DPRK fee would be
considerably more.

The ARRL needs to end this nonsense before someone in their zeal to
activate the most wanted entity on the planet is held for ransom, tossed in
a North Korean prison — or worse.

It’s time for the ARRL to do the responsible thing and delete P5 from the
DXCC list.

So long as it remains “number one� on that list, there will be continued
attempts to do whatever it takes to operate from there. And when things
eventually go bad in that pursuit, the blame will rest at the feet of those
in Newington.