Where is That Call?
One of the Local QRPers was up the hill the other day, this one carrying a list of callsigns he'd copied from his QSLs. "It's useless!", he exclaimed, thumping his list on the table. "What's the problem?", we asked in a rather concerned voice. "I was going to send in for my DXCC certificate," he replied, "and I was sure I had well over 100 countries confirmed. Now I can't seem to figure out where all these cards are from." This wasn't quite what we'd expected so we asked for clarification. "A lot of these calls don't make any sense," he exclaimed. "I can't figure out what they count for."
This didn't seem like a big problem so we decided to give the QRPer a hand sorting out his problem. "I got a lot of them figured out," he began, "but now I'm stuck." "What ones are giving you the problem?", we asked, in our most helpful tone. "Well, for starters, where is TM0C?", he asked. "France," we replied, "special contest call." The QRPer looked a bit disappointed. "Figured it might be one of their territories like Guadaloupe or Martinique. OK, how about GI0LDI/F?" "France again," we replied, "CEPT reciprocal licence." "Huh? France again? OK, then GM0POI/P is The Netherlands, right?" We had to be careful not to smile, so we put on our best poker face. "Nope, Scotland. That was Clive working portable. If he was in The Netherlands, he's have been signing GM0POI/PA." The QRPer just glared at us and crossed out the call.
"CE0DFL . . . Chile, right?" "No," we replied, "that's Marco on Easter Island." The QRPer's brow furrowed. "CE0Y is assigned to Easter Island, not CE0D!" We were properly sympathetic, "That's the case now, but when you worked him back in 1990, that was his old call before the Chilean PTT assigned X, Y and Z to San Felix, Easter and Juan Fernandez Islands." The QRPer gave us a look that would kill. "I already have Easter confirmed. I never bothered to work any other CEs . . . now I got to find another one." he snarled, scratching Chile off his confirmed list.
"OK," the QRPer brightened up, "here's one that will count for something, that's for sure! T91A/4U. Where is that? Bosnia or one of the surrounding countries. I need'em all in that area of the world." What could we do but tell the truth? "No", we replied slowly, hoping we still could avert disaster, "that was one of the UN peace keepers in Haiti. Counts for HH2." The QRPer jumped to his feet and glared at us with his beady little eyes. "That's not fair! I've got HH2PK confirmed a dozen times! How can they do this? I give up!" And with that he crumpled up his DXCC application and threw it in the garbage. "Why can't these guys stay put?", he snarled as he beat his way down the hill and off to the club to tell his tale of frustration.
Son of a Gun! What could we do? We picked the crumpled list out of the garbage can and gave it a quick look. We heaved a sigh of relief, for we spotted Ed's call, the KH6 who had recently moved to Philadelphia. He was listed in the Hawaii column! We were glad we hadn't had to explain that one to the QRPer! Since it was a warm summer day, we decided to take a stroll down to Palos Verdes country and see what the Sundancers were up to. One thing we knew about the QRPer, he'd be back! And we weren't in a hurry to explain how Hawaii was now in Philadelphia! DX IS!
This story is in the public domain and may be reproduced in any format. - VE1DX
Last updated 14 December 2020