Chasing after operating awards is one of my main activities in Amateur Radio. In this category on my site you’ll find descriptions of many awards that I’ve received and how you can go about receiving your own.
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 […]
I recall a fellow Ham at the University of Texas Amateur Radio Club (N5XU, then W5EHM) back in the 1980’s who declined to make a contact at the club station using his own callsign with some semi-rare DX station. His stated reason was that he wanted to make that contact with his home station instead […]
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 in the form of an […]
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. […]
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 […]