I suspect that French licensing officials have
determined that TO4 is a designate call for Guadeloupe.
The same as the FCC has determined the calls that are
appropriate for its territorial (or non-continental
states) entities. The updating of contest software to
keep up with such calls is a continuing process. There
is no need to suggest that this was a rules violation.
I am sure they were signing a call allocated to
Guadeloupe by the French licensing authorities.
Software will now be updated to include TO4 = FG with
the next revision.
It is very easy to take care of this during the contest
if you want your score readout to be correct. It used
to be that in CT you could type TO4 = FG and it would be
correct. I assume you can still do that. NA does not
accept =. What I do under the circumstances is to log
it each time as TO4T/FG and make a note to delete
the "/FG" with a text editor before submitting the
Cabrillo file. If you don't care that the cumulative
score in your computer may be wrong, you need to do
nothing. The Cabrillo file will be scored without
regard to what you think is a new country. As long as
the logcheckers have determined that TO4T = FG, it will
be scored that way without the need of any help from the
contestant.
Experienced contesters, particularly those with
directional antennas, should suspect that stations with
calls like TO4T that are loud and are coming in from the
direction of the Caribbean are actually in the
Caribbean. If your software doesn't recognize it, or
recognizes it only as France, your only alternative is
to ask (which I did on the first QSO).
I imagine that the operators of TO4T wanted a new prefix
more than they wanted instant country recognition.
Continued use of that prefix will bring more recognition.
73,
John, K4BAI/8P9HT/8P9Z.
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