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Hi Roman!
I hope all is well for you. It's fine here, but very busy. I would like to discuss with you a little about
M-V Island. As you may recall, in 1988 ARRL added M-V Island to the DXCC list based on a 1971 committment by Bob White, W1CW/W1WPO. Although the island is located within Russian territory, it has/had been leased by Finland (along with the Saimaa Canal) for some time. Based on the "Finnish Connection," provided by this lease arrangement, in 1971 Bob agreed that M-V should count as a DXCC country. In 1988 it would NOT have counted, but the committment had been made, and it was honored.
It appears that there was (at least) a verbal agreement between the Finnish and Russian organizations at the time that all operations to M-V would consist of a Russian Element and a Finnish Element. That is the participants for each operation would come from both Russia and Finland . This was in recognition of the fact that without a Finnish "element" it would be a Russian operation with a Russian radio license on Russian soil, and thus shouldn't count for anything but Russia.
If a Finnish callsign could be issued for each operation, I believe that would probably be enough of the
Finnish element. At the time (1988/1989), it was hoped that it would be possible to have a Finnish callsign
for operations from M-V. In fact, such callsigns were issued (OH5/K7JA, for operation from Ravansaari) on
one occasion. That possibility did not continue, however.
Now in the Summer of 2004 we had a R1MVI operation with only Russian operators, and no Finnish
participation. The expedition leader, probably with the old agreement in mind, did try to invite a Finn at
the last minute, but was unsuccessful. This situation has raised the issue.
So my questions for you as the president of SRR are: Should this old verbal agreement be honored and
continued, possibly even formalized in writing? Should this matter be discussed at the highest level between
the SRR and the SRAL? Should ARRL retain M-V Island as a separate DXCC entity for such territory within ther
very same country? Let me know your thinking on this matter.
73, Wayne Mills, N7NG/1, Manager
Membership Services Department
ARRL