E-MAIL FROM ULLMAR, SWEDEN

Hi Francesco and all:Congratulations on logging OJ0B - Market Reef! I just succeeded in hearing this rare DXCC entity on 7024 kHz coming up from a 579 at 0616z to 599 at 0628z... It's been a long long time... heard Market Reef for the first time in the 1970'ies on 80 m SSB! Now I had been chasing this station since Monday. The problem is I am only 250 km away, so short skip propagation is needed! Now it was OH2BH himself operating, and I was very pleased. First expedition to Market Reef was in 1969 when some Finnish hams found out that this islet in the Baltic Sea, 300 x 80 m, divided between Sweden and Finland, should be counted as a separate DXCC entity. This was because OH0 - Aland - was between Market Reef and Finland proper,making Market Reef an enclave! The lighthouse on the island was manned until 1976, and is still standing, but now only the seals live on Market Reef. The name has nothing with a 'market' to do, the real name (Swedish) is Märket, but since internationally we can't use the A with two dots it became Market Reef. 'Märket' means the Mark. This was a navigation mark, of course.In spite of many expeditions Market Reef still enjoys good interest. Swedish Ham magazine QTC had a fine article about OJ0 - Market Reef in tis latest issue. Some of the info given here is taken from the article. Did you know this Francisco? I think we should not just add "a new one" but find out a bit about the facts as well...Ullmar, SM5-1252