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ARRL affirms East Timor decision (Aug 18, 2003) -- The ARRL Awards Committee has announced it will continue to consider East Timor and Timor-Leste as a single entity for DXCC credit. This means all amateur contacts with East Timor since March 2000 will remain valid for DXCC. After East Timor broke away from Indonesia in 1999, the United Nations created the UN Temporary Administration in East Timor (UNTAET), and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) allocated a call sign block (4WA-4WZ) to UNTAET for use by non-UN amateur operations in East Timor. As a result, East Timor attained DXCC status in March 2000. After UNTAET left East Timor in May 2002, the ITU reallocated the call sign block to the new Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, which was admitted to the UN last September. Kan Mizoguchi, JA1BK, and Stuart Greene, WA2MOE, who activated Timor-Leste last year, subsequently petitioned the ARRL to remove East Timor (UNTAET) as a DXCC entity--thus invalidating earlier contacts and adding Timor-Leste as a new entity. The ARRL Awards Committee unanimously decided August 18 to reject their petition. "The consensus among committee members was that from the beginning in 2000, the ITU clearly intended to allocate the 4WA-4WZ call sign series for the exclusive use of the entity of East Timor," ARRL Membership Services Manager Wayne Mills, N7NG, said in a letter to Mizoguchi and Greene. "In the opinion of the Committee, this act provided the recognition for which the DXCC Political Entities rule was established." Mills said the DXCC program "is best served through the rational interpretation of existing rules," and he believes that occurred in this case. ===== Jim Reisert AD1C, 7 Charlemont Court, North Chelmsford, MA 01863 USA +978-251-9933, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, http://www.ad1c.com PGP Fingerprint: D8E2 3D78 339F A7F1 8C13 1193 B5D1 4FB6 79D1 70DC ---------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/unsubscribe, feedback, FAQ, problems, etc DX-NEWS http://njdxa.org/dx-news DX-CHAT: http://njdxa.org/dx-chat To post a message, DX NEWS items only, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Archives http://www.mail-archive.com/dx-news%40pro-usa.net ----------------------------------------------------------
