Speech held by Tibor Szilagyi, Secretary General of the EDXC
on the occasion of the EDXC Conference 2008 and in connection with the 50th
Anniversary
of the Finnish DX Association, Suomen DX--Liitto. Vaasa, Finland, on Saturday,
September 6, 2008.
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Dear DX -- Friends , Conference Participants !
10 months have gone since the closure of the EDXC Conference 2007 in Lugano /
Switzerland. Let me inform you what happened during the last 10 months from the
EDXC point of view.
As you probably know, the EDXC has today 10 European DX -- Clubs or Associations
as members, furthermore 3 DX -- Clubs and 1 Radio Station as Observer Members
and 1 Individual member. Our only Individual member is coming from Sweden, the
well--known Swedish DX--er Mr. Claes W. Englund.
During the last 10 months the number of the members were very stable. Also
the membership fees were paid rather fast at the beginning of the year 2008. We
--- at the EDXC ---
are very grateful for that, being a small and very poor organization, operating
with penny--like financial means.
The European DX Council has nowadays great difficulties to receive answers
from the different Radio Stations in Europe. The situation was much, much better
let us say 20 years
ago. What is going on inside the existing Radio Stations can be characterized
strictly from the EDXC point of view --- as ridiculous or even zero,
non--existent. I myself always invite
a lot of European and also Overseas Radio Stations to our EDXC conferences.
According to my own statistics 99 per cent of the approached Radio Stations are
not answering at all.
In my view, this almost zero result can be explained by the following :
No. 1 : The Radio Stations have changed their staff completely. Young, very
dynamic persons took over the work from their forfathers and these young
employees are working
completely differently compared to the work earlier.
No. 2 : The new staff at the Radio Stations does not even know, who we --- the
EDXC --- are. Of course I write in every invitation letter an introduction about
the EDXC, so they
should clearly understand, who we are.
No 3 : This new situation --- that the Radio Stations are not answering at all
--- is a real challange for the EDXC for the future.
How shall we overcome these difficulties ? At this very moment I do not have
any answer for it. Maybe particulary this Conference here in Finland can help us
to come closer to the
Radio Stations and develop more personal contacts to them. At least those Radio
Stations which are participating in todays Conference here in Finland, can help
us to achieve our
goals.
One of our EDXC members is the Hungarian DX -- Club in Piliscsev, Hungary. Since the foundation of this club in 1998, Mr. Lajos Horvath was the chairman of this club. I myself --- as only member of this club living outside Hungary --- I am acting as Representative to the EDXC . With deep sorrow in my heart I have to report to you, that Mr. Lajos Horvath passed away in March this year, at the age of 75. He was serving the Hungarian Radio over 50 years --- both as speaker and as DX -- editor. Last time Lajos Horvath visited Finland it was in connection with the 1992 EDXC Conference in Tampere. He often talked about this Tampere conference, he liked very much to be here, amongst Finnish friends. The Hungarian Radio took care of all arrangements in connection with his funeral in Budapest.
A relatively unknown Radio country is White Russia, the Belarus. The Swedish DX--ers Mr. Ullmar Quick and Mr. Bengt Ericson visited Radio Minsk during May 2007. This year --- 2008 --- in the early days of July we got a visitor to Sweden from the Belarus Radio. Mrs. Larisa Suarez was visiting Ullmar Quick and Bengt Ericson. Mrs. Larisa Suarez is one of the more important programme editors of Radio Minsk. While visiting Sweden she was also invited to Radio Sweden for an interview. Mr. Bengt Ericson --- who lives in the Swedish town of Växjö, was kind enough to think also of me, because I have my summer house only 70 Kms from Växjö. So, one beautiful sunshine Saturday Bengt visited me together with Larisa in my summer house. Of course I took this wonderful opportunity to invite Radio Belarus to our Conference here in Finland. It is after all much, much easier if the invitation goes to somebody whom you know personally at the Radio Station. At this point I would like to thank you, Bengt Ericson, bringing her along to my summer house.
I know that the organization of such a Big Conference and Anniversary Meeting
was a very, very big task for the Organizing Committee. I know this from my own
experience. as I had the
pleasure to arrange smaller EDXC Conferences in 2001 in Budapest / Hungary, in
2005 in Prague / Czech Republic and in 2007 in Lugano / Switzerland. I know that
you have had a lot of
Organizing Committee Meetings here in Finland, in order to make this happen. On
behalf of the EDXC I wish to express my Big Thank You to you all, for all the
excellent work you have
done. At the same time, I would like to wish this Conference and Meeting great
success, and please do continue with this wonderful DX -- hobby !!
And with these words I would like to declare this EDXC Coneference 2008 in Vaasa, Finland ----- AS O P E N !!!