One of my earliest awards was the All Japan Districts award, sponsored by the Japan Amateur Radio League (JARL). Only requiring 10 contacts, it was relatively easy to achieve. It didn’t hurt that it seemed there were even more Japanese stations on HF in the 1990’s when I earned it. Compared to some stateside awards […]
The International Amateur Radio Union‘s Worked All Continents award is a popular entry level award for working all 6 populated continents. Antarcticians need not apply. For those wishing to do the same thing solely using the FT8 digital mode the FT8 Digital Mode Club offers up their own WAC program. The WAC award is presented […]
The worldwide COVID-19 pandemic has upended the normality to which we had all grown accustomed. This applies to the Amateur Radio pastime of Award Hunting as well. Problems I’ve encountered a couple of issues related to COVID-19 that have hampered my award hunting efforts. Social Distancing A popular way to maintain the integrity of operating […]
The International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) represents Amateur Radio at the international level. When World governments gather to discuss issues that might impact Hams the IARU is there to argue our case. IARU members are the national Amateur Radio organizations in each country. This makes the IARU something like the United Nations of Ham Radio. […]
I’m a big fan of FT8. It’s allowed me to work far more stations recently near the solar minimum with a very modest home station than would otherwise have been possible. I’ve worked all US states and received the ARRL’s WAS award on a couple of different bands using this mode. Sometimes getting that last […]
The FT8 Digital Mode Club (FT8DMC) sponsors an award for working a certain number of Amateur Radio stations in Mexico. You can obtain the Worked Mexican Stations Award (WMSA) in three classes, depending up the number of different stations worked. Award Class Contacts I 50 II 25 III 10 The WMSA award is presented in […]
Alaska is a big US state and a separate DXCC country. The FT8 Digital Mode Club (FT8DMC) sponsors an award for working a certain number of KL7 stations called the Worked Alaskan Stations Award (WALSA). The club awards certificates for working 5, 10 and 15 different stations. The WALSA award is presented in digital form […]
Not every application adheres to standards. Such oversights or mistakes can complicate moving data between systems. The ADIF file specification defines two SRX fields relating to received information in contest exchanges. They share a common prefix, but are defined as containing related. but not identical, information. Field Type Description SRX Integer Received serial number SRX_FIELD […]
Here’s another FT8 Digital Mode Club (FT8DMC) award that does not require too many contacts to acquire. The Worked All New Caledonia Award (WANKA) requires only two FT8 contacts with Amateur Radio operators on the island territory of New Caledonia. There is only one class of the award. The WANKA award is presented in digital […]
The Worked Canadian Stations Award (WCASA) is a fairly easy to get started award which requires a minimum of 10 FT8 contacts with stations in Canada. The award comes in three classes, differing by the number of stations required: Award Class Contacts I 50 II 25 III 10 Conveniently, if you apply for the class […]