MyAwards

Some of my amateur radio awards from recent years. 


ARRL Diamond DXCC Challenge
2012 is the 75th anniversary of the ARRL’s DXCC Award. The world’s most famous DXing award continues to be DXCC, so reaching the “Diamond milestone” is an event that the ARRL and all amateur radio operators want to celebrate. Going back to the roots of the award, and specifically reading the 1937 DXCC List (January, 1937 QST pages 52-3) to learn what countries were counted at the onset led the ARRL to create the Diamond DXCC Challenge.

The country list that is used for the Diamond DXCC Challenge represents 226 of the 231 1937 “countries.” The list is fascinating to read: Abyssinia, Belgian Congo, British North Borneo, French Cameroon, French Indochina ... and many more.

The challenge is to "check-off" those entities from the list by working DX station during the course of 2012. Inital DDXCC award is issued, when 100 of the entities haveb been contatced. Endorsements for 125, 150, 175 ... are avialbale.

To find and contact the first 80 is easy, even for a modest equipped station. Then the real chase is started: find the missing ones, be there when they are active... work them. Suddenly a station from Norway or Switzerland seems to be as rare as from Congo, Aldebaran Island or Gilbert Islands: "Worked in previous years uncounted times, but NOW you need only one on 17m ..."

My #100 was YB8BP, good for "Celebes and Molucca Islands" followed by FG5LA as #101 from Gouadeloupe and #102 YI1RZ from Iraq.

During the summer 2012 50 more entities were added to my list. It was a good DX summer !

Now, with 154 entities worked, I sent my application to the ARRL through the online portal, which is specifically available for the DDXCC.Two weeks later , the nice award was in the mailbox.

Thanks for the Diamond DX challenge! The hunt goes on ... some +20 entities are the ultimate personal goal !


WAS - Worked All States
In 2009 for my "WAS - Worked All States" I was missing only the following US states on my LotW account:

ND, North-Dakota - confirmed paper QSL, but no LotW 
WY, Wyoming - confirmed paper QSL, but no LotW 
OR, Oregon - confirmed paper QSL, but no LotW 

ID, Idaho - not worked so far ... 
MT, Montana- not worked so far ... 
NV, Nevada- not worked so far ... 

44 out of 50 states confirmed: ...

only 6 states missing for WAS on LotW. ...
only 3 states missing for"hybrid" WAS with LotW and paper QSLs. 

During the year 2009 stations from those last states were worked. It was a mix of CW, SSB, RTTY an JT65 contacts. All QSOs were confirmed during the year and in October 2009 I sent the application for the award to the ARRL. 

A long hunt was over :-) 
First contacts made for that award in 1990 ... last contact in 2009 !
But what now? What to do next? 

A new challenge on the horzion: the ARRL has issued a new award in January 2009: "TPA" - the Triple Play Award . 

The Triple Play Award

First problem: work all 50 US states not only once ...not twice!
No! Work all 50 US states three times !!!
50 US states in CW
50 US states in SSB and
50 US states in DIGITAL (either RTTY, PSK, JT65 o.a.)
= 150 different QSOs needed

Second problem:
ALL confirmations have to be received in the online system of the ARRL LotW and all QSOs have to be dated January 1st, 2009 or later !

So the only one QSO with ND, SD or WY back in 2002 - confirmed somewhen with paper card via the buro ... was not eligible for this award !

Work all states a new ! And chase for all those 150 LotW confirmations !

And guess what? 
I did it!

2 years after the last QSO for the basic WAS award, I was lucky to receive the final confirmation for a a needed final QSO for the Triple Play Award !

Application was sent to the award comitee on October, 23rd 2011

A great help to find a partner for those last needed... rare... most neeeded band slots was the sked website from K3UK. Check it out if you need a QSO with a rare US state!



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