Tracking JA, VK and ZL Prefixes needed per band for Awards

The various FT8 Awards offer endorsements for achieving working all call areas on an particular band, for JA (Japan) VK (Australia) and ZL (New Zealand). After some thought devised a simple way to track what I still need.

Used the following low tech solution. In Excel made up lists of prefixes for JA, VK and ZL per band so

Printed this list out. Then, using a yellow highlight pen, crossed out the Prefixes I have worked. So at a glance can see whats still to go, and cross them out as I work them. You can of course check in the log but this takes time, this way can tell instantly what I need.

Wish 10 m would open up again and I could work JA9 :(

Tracking Amateur Radio Blogs using Inoreader

There are lots of Amateur Radio Blogs out there and you need a way to keep track of updates to them, this is where an RSS reader is handy. In the past I used Google Reader, until Google killed it off... so switched to Feedly. This has served me well, until they restricted it to 100 feeds in the free version. As I follow far more feeds than this looked around for another RSS reader, and found Inoreader.

This has no limit on the number of feeds it can track in the free version. Migration from Feedly was simple enough, export a list of my Feeds in Feedly into an .opml file, then import them into Inoreader.

I organize my Amateur Radio feeds in folders thus. You can use your own way.

Amateur Radio Blogs Local - For VK/ZL blogs, to track local Amateur Radio Blogs.
Amateur Radio Blogs World - For Amateur Radio Blogs in the rest of the World
Amateur Radio News - The usual news sites for hams, eg ARRL, SouthGate ARC, eHam etc

As well as normal blogs I also keep track of Podcasts and Youtube Subscriptions.

A screenshot of Inoreader, showing articles in Amateur Radio Blogs World.

There is also an Android App for Inoreader, so can catch up on the news while out.

FT8DMC Worked All New Zealand Award 20 m

I've managed to qualify for the FT8DMC WANZ (Worked All New Zealand) Award on 80 m, after some more ZL contacts recently managed to qualify on 20 m too. For the award you need ZL1 (4 QSOs), ZL2 (3 QSOs), ZL3 ( 2 QSOs) and ZL4 (1 QSO).

Here are the contacts I made for 20 m

ZL1BBW              2018-10-13  05:27  20M   FT8      ZL1   
ZL1BD               2018-10-12  06:25  20M   FT8      ZL1   
ZL1HX               2018-04-25  01:13  20M   FT8      ZL1   
ZL1MVL              2018-10-13  03:42  20M   FT8      ZL1   
ZL2IAS              2018-10-04  08:07  20M   FT8      ZL2   
ZL2TLF              2018-10-13  05:25  20M   FT8      ZL2   
ZL2WD               2018-05-11  23:50  20M   FT8      ZL2   
ZL3GAV              2018-09-29  01:03  20M   FT8      ZL3   
ZL3JW               2018-09-15  01:21  20M   FT8      ZL3   
ZL4AS               2018-05-12  23:35  20M   FT8      ZL4   

Applied via the UAAC software, award approved by the Manager ZL1MVL Ian. Downloaded from the EPC website.

European Ros Club 50 Members Award

Noticed in Ultimate AAC software I had managed to contact over 50 members of the Eurobean Ros Club (ERC) so applied for the award. Downloaded from the EPC website. Here it is

FT8DMC Worked 200 Grids Awards

After some activity of FT8 lately managed to get to 200 Grid squares worked, and apply for the FT8DMC Grids WGA 200 Award, using Ultimate AAC software.

A breakdown of unique grids worked per band that I counted using Excel.

10 m - 13 Grids
17 m - 29 Grids
20 m - 26 Grids
30 m - 30 Grids
40 m - 84 Grids
80 m - 18 Grids

So most were on 40 m, to be expected at this part of the sunspot cycle... Still waiting for the higher bands to open up...

Here is the award.