If you're a real Big Gun, you've already sitting atop the DXCC Honor Roll, or you're sitting around waiting for a DXpedition that may never happen (P5?). With the pitiful state of the sunspots, adding new counters on the high bands is about as exciting as watching paint dry.
We miss the days when New Ones came around at a regular pace. Gone are the days of Danny Weil, Don Miller, and Gus Browning traveling the world activating new countries, whether they existed or not (Maria Theresa, anyone?). Even Martti Laine has slowed down his lifelong quest of finding new ones.
After all, it's become much more difficult. Satellites have mapped the earth, so finding “new” islands or lands is practically impossible. Even the League had to admit there were limits to what could be considered an island after the obscenity of Scaffold Reef. No hinterlands of undiscovered peoples and kingdoms exist. We have conquered all of the mountain ranges, jungles and rivers. All of the lands have been claimed. Or have they?
In recent history, the only way to create a new one has been through political recognition of sovereignty or independence. Before the fall of the Eastern Block, we had Czechoslovakia. Afterwards, we have the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic. One DXCC entity becomes two. More recently we have seen Saint Barthelemy came about due to a quirk in the organization of French rule.
Our best hope for new DXCC counters is to encourage more independence movements within existing countries. Now, we don't want to advocate violent rebellion in the name of the DXCC program, although we won't turn it down if it gets us another counter. No need to resort to violence or encourage ethnic strife. Seriously, we got enough of that already.
It turns out there are already a boatload, ok, maybe a dingyload, of republics, duchies, and principalities that have already declared their independence from their native countries. If we could just get a few of these recognized by other countries, we can probably get the ARRL to add them to the DXCC list. Hey, if they can call Scarborough Reef an entity with a straight face, any place that has dry land ought to be eligible.
Here's a list of potential “new ones”:
We at the Lost Island DX Society are preparing to start a letter campaign to petition for recognition of these already declared independent entites. If we can get even one member of the United Nations to recognize the sovereignty of the these nascient countries, we can petition the ARRL to add them to the DXCC list. Most of them are easy to reach. Some only require a short car ride. Itay has it's Vatican and SMOM, why can't we have our Republic of Molossia?
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