South America has 12 nations, 3 territories and a few other DXCC entities thrown in for good measure. The Worked Different Amateur Radio – South America Award from the European Ros Club rewards Hams who make contact with at least 50 different stations on the continent.
There are a good number of Hams in South America, so earning the initial award is not very hard. But working stations on the continent from North America is not necessarily as trivial as you might think. The distance from Kansas City to Buenos Aires is greater than the distance from Kansas City to London. Nevertheless, with a modest FT8 enabled station, you should be able to earn this without too much effort.
In addition to the initial 50 station award there are addition certificates that commemorate ever larger numbers of stations. A total of 12 levels are offered with the top level at the time of this writing being 1,500. But there’s even more to the program. Certificates for numerous single band contacts can be had for the following bands.
| 6M | 10M | 12M |
| 15M | 17M | 20M |
| 30M | 40M | 60M |
| 70M | 80M | 160M |
I do wonder whether the 70M band above is really referring to the 4M (70 MHz) band. The 75M band would not make sense because the award is for digital and not phone contacts. Nevertheless that makes for 12×12, or 144, possible certificates to chase in the program.
The certificates feature prominent photos of various locations around the continent. The 150 station certificate shows the Christ the Redeemer statue overlooking Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. The 200 station certificate features the Palacio de López in Paraguay. A small map consisting of designs from the flags of the South American nations also appears.
To apply for the Worked Different Amateur Radio – South America Award, and all other ERC awards, you must install the UltimateAAC application on a Windows machine. That application scans your WSJT-X ADIF log file and will inform you when you’ve qualified for the award at various levels. ERC issues the award in digital form only (JPG or PDF) with no printing or shipping costs. In fact, the award is completely free, like all of their other awards.