I'm a tech creator
Author: ba1du
The Spratly Islands are located at the southernmost tip of China and consist of more than 230 islands and reefs covering about 150,000 square kilometers in the South China Sea. Due to historical reasons, seven surrounding countries and regions have successively declared sovereignty over all or part of the Nansha Islands. Before the thirties of this century, French colonists occupied the main islands of the Spratly Islands.
By the time of World War II, Japan had occupied the archipelago and made it one of Japan's most important naval bases in the South China Sea during World War II. After the war, the Kuomintang authorities recovered the archipelago and stationed troops on the largest island, Taiping Island, to this day. For more than 40 years, neighboring countries have never stopped competing for this sea area, which is rich in oil and gas resources underground. So far, China, Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia and Vietnam have all taken de facto control over some of these islands.
China's current policy on the Nansha issue is to "shelve differences and develop together", and advocate the peaceful settlement of disputes through negotiations among relevant countries. At the same time, some DX patriots have been trying to get the radio waves of amateur radio out of this troubled area, and have paid a huge price.
In October 1965, Don Miller, W9WNV made contact in Nansha using the 1S9WNV call sign and became the first amateur radio transmitter enthusiast in Nansha. Since then, the Spratly Islands have become a DXCC country (formerly known as a "country", but in order to avoid confusion with political states, the new DXCC rules have been renamed "entity entity").
In February 1973, the 1S1A expedition consisting of WB4VBY, W5ZSX, K7CBZ, W4EVG and WB4UZP carried out activities there, the first amateur radio expedition to reach the Spratly Islands. During that event, wb4vby nearly drowned, falling into the water for hours before being rescued.
In April 1979, K4SMX, N2OO, K1MM, VK2BJL, KP2A, and N4WW formed a 1S1DX expedition to set up a station on a Vietnamese-occupied island of Amboyna Cay, where the Vietnamese ** aborted the expedition plan **, but fortunately there were no personnel**.
In April 1983, an expedition of German hams Baldur, DJ6si and others tried to land the Vietnamese-controlled island again, but the Vietnamese sank their boat, killing two hams, and the survivors were rescued after a long drift.
In May 1983, Filipinos du1ck and du1us used the 1s1ck call sign to carry out their activities on a Philippine-controlled island in the Spratlys.
In 1991, a man named Romeo Stepanenko tried to use 1S1RR and 1S0XV and call signs to try again to operate on the Vietnamese-controlled islands, and he was said to have set out from Myanmar and landed on those islands, although most people in the international community did not believe that his operation was actually carried out on those islands.
In 1993, an expedition of American, Japanese, Finnish, Malaysian and Singaporean enthusiasts such as N7NG and OH2BH conducted amateur radio operations on the Malaysian-controlled island of Palau Layang-Layang with a call sign of 9M0s.
In April 1995, a 9m0a expedition consisting of several Japanese hams landed on Palau Layang-Layang Island again.
In August 1997, N2OO, N0RN and KO4J also operated on the island of Palau Layang-Layang with the 9M6OO call sign.
In February 1998, another large-scale DX expedition organized by the British, involving enthusiasts from the United Kingdom, the United States, Japan, Malaysia and Malta took place on the island of Palau Layang-Layang, using the 9M0C call sign to make 65,500 contacts in 12 days.
In order to avoid getting involved in politics, the amateur radio community has always taken a neutral stance on the issue of the Spratlys, which in the past has been treated as a "jurisdictionless area." The new DXCC Rules, which came into effect on March 31 last year in 2000 by the DXCC Committee, have significant changes to the "substantive criteria". Under the new entity conditions, a non-jurisdictional territory cannot become a DXCC entity. However, the practice of the DXCC is that once a place is included in the DXCC list, it will not be disqualified due to a change in the rules, so it treats the Nansha Islands as a "special area" and stipulates that amateur radio operations in the Nansha Islands will be recognized as long as they are licensed by the actual control country** of the island where the operation is located. This means that the "1S" prefix set by enthusiasts has lost its legitimacy for DXCC. It is not difficult to see that any change in the nature of the Spratly Islands under the DXCC rules will depend on a new agreement between the disputed countries in the region.
The current situation of the Nansha Islands issue is caused by its historical reasons and objective realistic conditions, and its complete solution may require the unremitting efforts of several generations. However, this should not become an obstacle to the communication between amateur radio amateurs in this region, just as China advocates "shelving differences and joint development", amateur radio amateurs should and can become peace messengers in this region. I look forward to the day when China's own amateur radio station will appear in our Nansha Islands.