[RTTY] E4X Palestine Country Status

[Bill, W6WRT]

ORIGINAL MESSAGE:

On Sun, 06 Jun 2010 07:49:30 -0500, Dick Kriss <aa5vu at att.net> wrote:

>Yes, I know E4 is an ARRL approved DXCC country for contacts
>made after 1-Feb-1999; however, I would appreciate clarification
>on why Palestine is consider a separate county?

REPLY:

The ARRL has been trying to get away from using the word "countries"
in recent years, in favor of "entities". Obviously many entities on
the DXCC list are not "countries" by any stretch of the imagination. 

I tell my non-ham friends that what I loosely call "countries" are
really just geographic areas that have their own radio licensing
structure. Places like Tahiti or Easter Island are clearly not
countries in the usual sense of the word, but they do have unique
radio licenses, and currently there are 338 such entities. That seems
to satisfy most folks. 

73, Bill W6WRT