The Waverley Amateur Radio Society is on the countdown to its centenary on 27 January 2019!
The ‘Century for Centenary Project’ is the first of the activities to celebrate the centenary of the club’s founding in 1919.
The ‘Century for Centenary Project’ is very simply, a project intended to encourage member’s activity on the radio, with the aim of achieving the DXCC (DX Century Club) award, and as many other operating awards as possible for club callsign VK2BV, in the next three years to the centenary in 2019.
Operating awards are issued for achievements in working contacts and receiving verifications by QSL. Examples of some awards include the ‘DX Century Club’ for working and QSLing 100 DX ‘countries’ (entities) on HF, or ‘Worked All States’ on VHF. There are a range of operating awards on offer through a number of programmes administered by the WIA, ARRL, eQSL and QRZ.com among others. Don’t forget that you can work toward awards in the different programmes with your own callsigns.
How do I participate?
Participation in the ‘Century for Centenary Project’ is simple:
- Financial club members are encouraged to activate the club callsign VK2BV, either from the club station (on-site or remote) or via their home station and make contacts!
- You can make contacts using any mode or band you are personally permitted to operate on according to your license class. eg. If you are a Foundation license holder, you may use VK2BV only on the bands, modes and power permitted to a Foundation license. Note also that VOIP contacts (eg Echolink, IRLP, DStar etc) do not count toward awards.
- All contacts must be logged accurately (in UTC) using a PC logger.
- Your VK2BV log files (ADIF format preferred) should be exported and emailed (as often as possible) to the club QSL Manager VK2VEL, who will add them to the club’s master logbook and load them to Logbook of the World, eQSL and QRZ.com, or send out an old fashioned QSL card via the bureau.
- That’s it! You don’t have to do anything other than operate your radio, log the contacts, and email the logs to the QSL Manager.
Results and Future Targets
The ‘Century for Centenary Project’ has already hit the ground running! When the club’s long neglected logs and QSL records (mostly dating from 2008 onwards – sadly, most of the logs before 2008 have been lost) were consolidated and entered into the WIA Award system (which counts LoTW, eQSL and paper QSL cards), we were pleasantly surprised to find that we had achieved three awards:
- WIA 100 Grid Squares (HF, Open)
- International Amateur Radio Union ‘Worked All Continents’ (Open)
- IARU ‘Worked All Continents’ (Phone)
There are many more awards for the club to work on! If you have any questions about participating in the project, require specific information about any particular award, or simply have any question about logs, QSLs and operating awards, please contact Edwin VK2VEL.
The following are a snapshot of just four of many award areas in the WIA Award programme for the club to work towards:
Multi-mode DXCC
DXCC achieved by operating mode on HF. In the Open category, the club has 50 DX entities (or ‘countries’) verified, with another 50 to go! There is 1 ‘deleted country’ the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) for a contact in 1988. The ladder shows the numbers required for each mode, as of April 2016. The spreadsheet is a detailed list of the verified ‘countries’ as of April 2016.
Spread sheet: VK2BV multi-band DXCC (open)
Multi-band DXCC
DXCC achieved by band and operating mode on HF. The award is issued for the number of bands in each mode. The ladder is only an extract showing the two mode and bands where the club has had the most contacts. These are 20m band, open mode with 43 countries; and 20m band, phone mode with 37 countries
Worked All States VHF
Worked All States (VK) on 6m and 2m. The ladder show that the club has most progress on 6m, with 3 ‘states’ of 8 verified.
International Amateur Radio Union ‘Worked All Continents’
Worked All Continents on HF. Open and Phone categories have already been awarded, and the club isn’t far off CW or Digital. Only paper QSLs are counted for the IARU awards, and it’s a slow return trip via the QSL bureau, so start working CW and Data modes!
Further Information
Further information on the WIA Awards programme, including a complete list of operating awards: http://www.wia.org.au/members/awards/about/