Worked All States — 5 Bands Completed

I chase paper — from degrees to seminars to ham radio awards. It’s part of who I am. I feel this affliction started with rank advancement and merit badges in the Scouting program.

Lately I’ve reviewed my standing for 5-Band DXCC and WAS. Toward, 5-Band DXCC I need only 80 meters to complete the effort. That’s been somewhat challenging with temporary antennas and 100 watts. But for sure WSJT-X FT8 has been immensely helpful. Still working on this one — 79 worked, 71 confirmed. LoTW seems to be a non-starter with many of these stations.

For 5-Band Worked All States, I can report that I’ve crossed the finish line and submitted my Logbook of the World application last night. With this one, I needed 7 states on 10 meters and 3 states on 15 meters. I also had one state missing in LoTW on 80 meters, but it showed in my logbook. Found the QSO on LoTW and marked it correctly for WAS credit.

As we came up on ARRL Field Day, the temporary rule change to allow home stations to contact other home stations motivated me to put up a two-band dipole for 10 and 15 meters. Tweaked them for resonance and I was ready.

Got on the air early on the 10 and 15 meter FT8 frequencies, which were very busy. I set up JT Alert to watch for the states I needed. At first this didn’t work, but I then realized I needed the latest version, downloaded and all was well.

Over the two days I managed to work four or five stations in every state I needed save for Oklahoma and Arkansas with only one station in each. I also worked only two stations in Wyoming.

At least one station in each state confirmed on LoTW very quickly with only Oklahoma remaining unconfirmed. Yesterday that one confirmation showed up.

LoTW and FT8 really help us paper chasers to rack up awards. That and, of course, the stations on the other end of the QSO. Thanks.

I’ll note further that I’ve had a great deal of fun with the ARRL Worked All States program over the years. I earned CW WAS in August 2010, RTTY WAS in January 2014, and W1AW Worked All States during 2014 — which was a wonderful operating program with temporary W1AW activations across the country throughout the year.