The Worked All New Zealand Award indicates that an Amateur Radio Operator has made a given number of FT8 contacts with the four call areas of New Zealand proper. The FT8 Digital Mode Club (FT8DMC) is the sponsor of the award. There are four call areas present in the two main islands of New Zealand. […]
The FT8 Digital Mode Club issues the Worked All Australia Award to Radio Amateurs who make contact with at least one station in each of the 8 call areas of Australia. Australia actually administers two additional call areas not required for this award. The VK9 call area is issued for territories such as Christmas, Cocos, […]
The Diploma Paises and DXCC programs from the European Ros Club are the ERC equivalent of the American Radio Relay League’s DXCC program. To earn certificates an Amateur Radio operator has to work as many “countries” as possible using digital modes such as FT8. It appears the Diploma Paises is awarded for working countries across […]
Maidenhead Grid Squares are an Amateur Radio invention designed to spur activity on the VHF bands. By creating a uniform grid of possible multipliers around the world the insurmountable advantages some stations had due to political boundaries could be mitigated. Particularly with the advent of FT8, which uses the grid as its main QSO exchange, […]
CQ Magazine’s Worked All Zones (WAZ) award is one of the oldest and most prestigious awards in Amateur Radio. To obtain the award one needs to work confirm contacts with at least one station in each of the 40 CQ zones spread all over the Earth. Working and confirming 40 QSOs sounds easier than the […]
The last couple of months had a slow start for incoming QSL cards. But we then left for a couple of weeks of vacation and I came home to a nice set of cards awaiting me. And then near the end of this month I received one of the most important QSL cards I’ve received […]
Want a year long challenge? The State QSO Party Challenge provides a fun way to check out propagation and different modes to various spots in North America. Years ago, state QSO parties were a bit more popular and active than they are today. The State QSO Party Challenge is trying to reverse this by encouraging […]
The last couple of months have been very good to me. Each of the QSL cards below represent an All Time New One (ATNO) or DXCC countries I had never worked and confirmed before. I’d worked 2 Papua New Guinea stations in the 1990s, both during the IARU HF Championship. But I never found the […]
I’m in the process of building up a station to operate portable for VHF contests and Parks on the Air efforts. I recently purchased a battery pack from GigaParts to provide power for this purpose. The source of power is a 24 Ah LiFePO4 battery. This fits in a plastic carrying box with plenty of […]
I’m wrapping up 2022 with my last QSL card update of the year. As I write this ClubLog reports that I have made 2,962 QSOs and contacted 172 DXCC entities. Both are the most I’ve ever done in a single year. I’m also far more focused on QSLing those contacts as soon as possible. In […]