WWFF 2025 Marathon Awards

The Awards for the WWFF 2025 Marathon were made available to download. I picked up several, a trip up to Queensland activating several parks on the way probably helped lol. 

 

Eagles Claw Nature Reserve VKFF-2593

Staying at Merimbula for a few days, decided to activate a few WWFF parks around Eden. One of these was Eagles Claw Nature Reserve, VKFF-2593. This is a small park just to the South of the town of Eden, not far from the Eden port. Followed Bramble St to the East, turned off onto an unnamed road and parked. After a short walk reached a Rotary lookout in the park.

Not far from here a sign on the fence, Eagles Claw Nature Reserve set up to protect Little Penguins nesting here.

Good views from the lookout.

Set up the squid pole on the railing of the lookout.

Strung out the dipole legs just below the lookout.

A handy seat at the lookout for the radio and myself.

Location. Map from Openstreetmaps

Got on 40m. Worked

VK2VAR/VK2GOM, VK1AO/VK2MET, VK2IO/VK2GEZ, VK2EXA, VK3SQ/VK2BD/VK3JT, VK3PF/VK3KAI, VK3BEL/VK3BEB, VK3CEO, VK3HAK, VK3ZSC, VK2VW/VK2HFI/VK2AKA/VK2BUG, VK2HEY/VK2YOU/VK2FANG, VK5IS, VK2VIC/VK1VIC/VK2GOY.

VK2XWB in VKFF-0048 Kamay Botany Bay National Park

VK2BQO, VK3AKD, VK3AXH

Went to 30m. Worked

VK2IO/VK2GEZ, 

VK2XWB in VKFF-0048 Kamay Botany Bay National Park

VK5CZ, VK2VW/VK2HFI/VK2AKA/VK2BUG, VK4EMP/VK4TI/VK4GKO

Went to 20m. Worked

VK2VW/VK2HFI/VK2AKA/VK2BUG

With 47 in the log had qualified the park.

WWFF VK8 Parks Worked

There are 70 WWFF parks in VK8, Northern Territory.

Statistics on parks worked per band

A total of 18 parks or 25% total parks worked.

Interestingly the most popular band is 10m. The 40m contacts were all around Alice Springs, at the Southern end of VK8. VK8 is quite rare for me, I hardly work them, even not in parks. 

Map of VK8 parks worked. Mainly around Darwin and Alice Springs.

WWFF VK7 Parks Worked

The next State to make a Log4OM award for was VK7, Tasmania. It has 323 active WWFF parks.

Breakdown of parks worked per band

97 parks worked and 30% of all parks worked. Seem to mainly work mainland activators on holidays there, although there are a few VK7s active. Most contacts on 40m. 20m is actually too close for me, it's only around 600 km or so to Northern Tasmania from Canberra. Southern Tasmania is about 800 Km away, so can work VK7 on 20m around Hobart.

Map of VK7 parks worked.

WWFF VK6 Parks Worked

Western Australia, VK6 has a total of 544 WWFF parks active. List in Log4OM Award.

Statistics for VK6 parks worked per band.

20m is the best band. Due to distance 40m is quite hard, mostly made to Southern Western Australian parks in the evenings.  Only a total of 28 parks worked, or 5% of all parks worked. Just hard due to distance and not many activators.

Map of parks worked in VK6

WWFF VK5 Parks Worked

Next State to look at was South Australia VK5. A total of 489 active parks.

Far enough away from me to make good use of bands above 40m, although 40m still the most popular band. 20m works well. A total of 235 parks or 48% worked.

There are not that many parks compared to Eastern States, however the ones there are very large, eg Lake Torrens, Flinders Ranges. Map of VK5 parks worked.

WWFF VK4 Parks Worked

Next State to get WWFF park statistics on is Queensland, VK4. From wwff_directory.csv found it has 712 active parks.

Statistics for parks worked on each band

A total of 196 parks worked or 27% of all parks worked. Surprisingly 40m still the most popular band, as Queensland would be workable on 20m or higher bands, suspect most activators stick to 40m only.

To North Queensland 20m and higher would be the better choice over 40m.

Map of VK4 parks worked.

 

WWFF VK3 Parks Worked

Continuing my State analysis of parks worked, used wwff_directory.csv to get a list of all Victorian, VK3 parks. Filtering only active ones got 3112 parks. 

There are a lot of WWFF parks in VK3! I have logged contacts with 665, 21% of them

Once again 40m is the best band, 30m works well too with 49 contacts. 80m is a useful band for Eastern Victoria, not that far away from Canberra. 20m is usually too close, only just far enough away for parks in Western Victoria. Have struck the odd sporadic e opening though, working into Melbourne and Gippsland parks on 20m.

Map of park contacts into VK3 Victoria, pretty much all over the State.

WWFF VK2 Parks Worked

Having done an Awards page in Log4OM for VK1 Parks, decided to do Awards pages for the other VK States and Territories. For a list of parks downloaded the WWFF master directory of all parks in the world, from the WWFF.co website wwff_directory.csv. From this extracted a list of all parks in State VK-NSW and also parks with Status Active only. Ended up with 1011 parks in NSW. Created an award from the list, looking at the QSOs Sig Info field 

Statistics of NSW parks worked per band.

As expected 40m the most popular band. Quite a lot of parks on 80m too as I used this during the last sunspot minimum. 20m is mostly too close but starts to work into Northern NSW into Canberra.

476 parks out of 1011 means I have worked around 47% or almost half of the total parks. 

Map of all parks worked in NSW. Not many contacts into NW NSW, mainly desert and properties.

25 stations from Thailand Award

Award for working 25 stations from Thailand.

USA 250 Award

See there is a new award available for users of QRZ Logbook, USA 250 Award. To commemorate the United States of America 250th anniversary of its founding in 2026.

So far only 1 USA station confirmed on 10m. This band is where I mostly contact the USA. As not many seem to use QRZ Logbook I will probably have to work a lot more than 250 stations to qualify for this award by the end of the year. For comparison last year, 2025 only worked 64 US stations that confirmed. out of 90 contacts.

1750 VKFF Hunter Honour Roll Award

Award for working 1,750 different VKFF areas. Thanks, activators for QSOs.

2025 year in review

Clublog has a Timeline feature, so you can see how many QSOs you make each year, type and countries worked. Here is mine.

A record number of QSOs for me in 2025, also a record number of DXCCs worked at 105. The jump in phone contacts probably due to a heap of park activations made driving to and from Queensland in the winter. The jump in countries due to me concentrating a bit more on 20m, I have ignored this band in the past as it can be dominated by big gun stations, with a simple dipole and 100w I am struggling to be heard. Anyway, was able to do quite well on FT8 mode.