The Hawaiian Islands, like Alaska, remains a part of, but apart from, the majority of the United States. In Sweepstakes Hawaii is considered a domestic entity. In the ARRL DX Contest it’s considered a DX entity. The islands certainly maintain an allure that draws many tourists to their shores to this day. The Worked Hawaiian […]
Like many awards of the FT8 Digital Mode Club (FT8DMC), applying for their Europe Stations Award is easy. The harder part is trying to get to the “end” of the program, particularly if you live far away from Europe. To achieve the lowest level of the award an Amateur need make FT8 contacts with 100 […]
One of Amateur Radio’s most popular awards is CQ Magazine’s WPX Award. An Amateur can earn WPX by confirming contacts with a certain number stations with unique callsign prefixes. There are thousands of possible prefixes around the globe so it’s one of the more open ended programs out there. In the past collecting hundreds, if […]
The American Radio Relay League‘s DX Century Club Award (DXCC) remains one of the most prestigious certificates in Amateur Radio. Many Hams who do not consider themselves award chasers nevertheless chase that particular piece of paper. Obtaining DXCC can be a bit pricy though. Are there more economical choices? The FT8 Digital Mode Club (FT8DMC) […]
Not too long ago I wrote about the International Amateur Radio Union‘s IARU Region 3 Award. The object of the award is to work as many nations as possible in IARU Region 3. This region roughly encompasses Asia and Oceania. Note the emphasis on nations and not “countries”, a loose term often attributed to DXCC […]
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 […]
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 […]
