WAS - Worked All States Awards

Pages: DXing | 30 Meters | 6 Meters | WAS | ARRL Centennial 2014

Among working for the DXCC Challenge and different WAZ awards I have more and more set my goals to achieve different WAS awards since 2014.

50 WAS Awards/Endorsements?

These are my current WAS Award standings with 52 WAS awards and endorsements achieved LoTW only (ARRL Logbook of the World) 2022-09-16:

WAS Basic CW Phone Digital RTTY JT65 JT9 FT8 FT4   Modes 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50   Bands Basic CW Phone Digital RTTY JT65 JT9     needed 160m 46 43                 80m 50 45   46   46         40m 50 50 45 50 45 50 32       30m 50 50   50 44 50 41       20m 50 50 50 50 50 50 50       17m 50 50 50 50 50 50 49     JT9: AK 15m 50 50 50 50 50 50 48     JT9: AK HI 12m 50 50 50 50 49 50 48     JT9: AK HI RTTY: NE 10m 50 50 50 50 50 50 48     JT9: AK HI 6m 50     48           Digital: AK NE

Other WAS Awards:

• 5 Band WAS
• Triple Play Award
• W1AW WAS 2014

I have tons of paper QSLs but I don't collect them anymore. We have electronic award systems - let's use them! I have a few more paper QSLs on 160m, 80m and 6m but they do not show here because these are LoTW only credits.

Setting goals

Solar activity increased rapidly in mid-May 2013 and sunspot cycle 24 began to show a second peak in 2013/2014. Time to do something on my WAS Award records, especially on 30m, 17m and 12m. My WAS Award standings in November 2013 were - all LoTW only:

I was mainly operating CW and did not take too much care of RTTY and Phone. North Dakota was missing on 15m CW and Wyoming on 10m CW in LoTW. I had to stay at home in December 2013 for three weeks and conditions were pretty good. So I decided to complete my WAS awards on 30m, 17m, 12m and also on 15 and 10. The other goal was to get all confirmations through the LoTW, the ARRL Logbook of the World.

I began to call CQ NA on 12m CW on Dec 10, 2013 with my Cushcraft A3WS 12m/17m 3 element duobander. The pileups were great and stations from all US states were coming back. I could copy and log a lot of QRP and QRPP stations as well. One of them N0EVH in MO who called me with 100mW. After a few days there were 47 states in the log on 12m with AK, MT and WY missing when I began to call CQ NA also on 17m CW and to repeat the game. The number of US stations using LoTW was pretty high with many of them uploading their logs the same day. On Christmas 2013 I also began to call CQ NA on 30m CW using my 3 element monoband yagi which is really fun. Tremendous pileups, at one time with US stations coming back from 27 different states all over within 60 minutes.

My 17m WAS CW was complete with all 50 states confirmed on LoTW within 21 days after a total of 880 QSOs on 12m, 17m, 30m. KA7HUO in MT and WY7FD in WY helped me to reach 49 states on 12m CW LoTW with only Alaska missing. We have no propagation to AK on the high bands in December and I had to wait till the end of February 2014 to be able to work KL7 and to complete my WAS on 12m CW on LoTW. I could also work my last state on 15m (KD4POJ ND) and 10m CW (N7MJ WY) with a LoTW confirmation. Three states were however still missing on 30m CW but I got those too in April with the last ones being NV (N7XM), LA (W5ZPA) and MO (NS0D).

ARRL Centennial QSO Party 2014

The ARRL Centennial QSO Party began on January 1st, 2014 with each state being activated twice throughout the whole year with W1AW Portable activities. This was a great and unique chance for me to work different WAS awards also on Phone and RTTY. At the end of the year I had worked 961 states on 10 bands and three modes, all only with W1AW Portables. More on that on my ARRL Centennial QSO Party page together wih a few W1AW audio recordings and a W1AW QSL Collection.

WSJT Modes

In February 2014 I also began to try out the WSJT modes JT65 and JT9 and to work WAS awards on these modes as well. There was a huge activity on JT65 and a significantly lower activity on JT9 but most or almost all of the JT operators use the LoTW. Some of them are even uploading immediately after the QSO to LoTW so you get an instant confirmation and QSL record.

JT65 and JT9 are low power modes. You should keep your transmit power as low as needed for a contact and so was I doing using about 20 to 30W on JT65 and 5W on JT9. It took usually 21 days to complete a JT65 WAS award on a single band on LoTW. I had 6 Band WAS JT65 30m through 10m complete until August 2014 when I began my WAS JT65 on 40m. A long path QSO with AE7U in January 2015 on 40m completed my 7 Band WAS JT65.