Need new countries to boost the excitement

The plan was to sail directly to Nuku Hiva in Marquesas group where Danny would operate once again as FO8AN. Dick, KV4AA had been pushing Marquesas for DXCC status since 1962, Danny’s first passage to Marquesas, and did not give up. He had hoped that the DXCC Committee could be prevailed upon to re-examine this matter in view of what we might call a more liberal, and certainly more popular, approach to these matters which they had shown in recent years. Clearly something was needed to inspire DXers to join the Yasme Foundation and support Danny’s next phase out in the Pacific. Dick was busy circulating batches of a petition to make the Marquesas a separate DXCC entity.

There were so many plans in place. Yasme’s next stop after Tahiti was presumed to be either Flint or Vostok Island, 600 miles northwest of Tahiti under British administration, seemingly far enough removed from anywhere to qualify for a separate country status. From Flint, 300 miles away is Tongareva Island (sometimes called Penrhyn Atoll) in the Cook Islands. If we would list all known and unknown places that were in the plans it would extend the DXCC list overboard. Indeed DXers have dreams, big dreams, especially when they think about new DXCC counters.

Funny enough even in those early days a search for new counters had more excitement than activating the rare known countries. Dick had many of those on his drawing board but clearly only one, Bajo Nuevo, HKØAA made it to the history books while Marquesas did only many years later. (Effective date for Marquesas Islands: April 01, 1998).

READ ON > Turning sailing and repair into actual QSOs – the Blue Pacific
RETURN TO > FIRST PAGE