As early as 1968 I joined the DARC (Deutscher Amateur Radio Club) as a young boy together with my father. For this 50-year membership 1968 – 2018 I received a Certificate and a Golden Needle from the Head of our local Radio Club Karl-Heinz (DH8WG, left on picture) during our last club meeting end of April 2018.
Beeing active on 2 m since 1973 with an interruption of more than 25 years I finally completed the “144 MHz WAC – Worked All Continents” last December and received the Award today.
Many thanks to 3V8ONU (Africa, CW-Meteor Scatter 1979), K1WHS (North America, CW-EME 1982), UG6AD (Asia, Sporadic E 1989), VK5APN (Oceania, JT65-EME 2017) and PY2GN (South America, JT65-EME 2017) for making this possible.
Back in 1983, that means 35 years ago, I completed the 432 MHz WAC just with CW-contacts. Now the question is: Which band is next for WAC?
Because the weather in the last months did not allow any work on the antennas outside, so some time was left for QSO’s on the shortwave bands. Especially in FT8 mode many interesting DX stations could be reached.
Almost every day, the FT8DMC-Club launches new colorful diplomas for contacts in the FT8 digital mode. The application is made simply via the “Ultimate AAC” software. Mostly, the certificate can be downloaded after a few hours in the download center of the EPC-MC.
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Today I got the result of the 2017 “World Wide 160 Meter DX Contest CW” were I participated in the Low Power Category with just the K3 barefoot. Finally it ended up in 6th place in DL out of 84 participants and I am quite satisfied, because operation was just 50% of the total Contest time. The SSB-part endet up with ranking 19 out of 34, but that one was just for fun.
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Normally CW is my favourite mode, but but from time to time I use digital modes on Hf like PSK31/PSK63 for example to complete the white spots for my DXCC-Award. Talking about HF-bands I never saw any use of JT65-modes here because for me it is much too slow compared to a nice CW contact. With the availability of the new mode FT8 things changed. The software based on a FSK 8 tone code, an occupied bandwidth of 47 Hz and a 15 second tournaround! This increased the activity dramatically and even rare DX-stations appeared and uses FT8 mode.
These days Joe, OE4VIE, has initiated the FT8-DMC Club and offer some very nice and colourful, free of charge pdf-Awards. They pushed the activity right again, not to say there is a real FT8 hype now. The WAC Award (Worked all Continents) is not a challenge at all, because it could be worked within an hour by a well equipped station. The DXCC Award is even more difficult and issued for contacts with 100 DXCC entities, like the original by ARRL.
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In remembrance of the death of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Turkey’s first president, Radio Amateurs from Turkey will be active with special event stations TC10* from 20 October until 20 November 2017. Rules could be found here.
To commemorate the 72st Independence Day of The Republic of Indonesia on August 17, 2016, “Organisasi Amatir Radio Indonesia” proudly presents again this year the Special Event Station YB72RI and a nice Award working 5 to 10 Indonesian Districts between Aug. 01 – Aug. 17, 2017. The Award is free of charge and can be downloaded as pdf-file.
The Irish “Limerick Radio Club” offered the “Wild Atlantic Way” Award during the year 2017 for working the special stations EI11 – EI99. Each callsign represents a county on the route. The Wild Atlantic Way is a 2,500 Km route winding its way through the 9 counties on the Western Seaboard of Ireland. Along the route there are scenic areas, Towns and Villages, each with their own distinctive character. The pdf-Award is free of charge and arrived today via E-Mail from the Manager EI6AL – thanks Dave!
During the 2017 Soccer Confederation’s Cup the Russian Radio Club SRR and Miller DX-Club offered several short-term Awards for a different number of contacts and/or modes with the special stations R17xxx. More informations to find here. I am not a fan of soccer games and completing the awards is not a great challenge but some fun to work these stations during the poor conditions of the decreasing number of sunspots.
The International HF Cup of Black Sea is carried out by BSCC (Black Sea Contest Club). The aim of the competition is to make as many contacts with hams around the world as possible, especially with the radio stations from Black Sea region countries, members of BSCC, BSCC Headquarters’ station, radio clubs and the headquarters of the national amateur radio organizations – members of the IARU (HQ-stations).
Surprisingly I received this nice looking Contest Award today per E-Mail. Thank you BSCC!
