Awards for Satellite Operators

You can see what the certificates look like and see the list of those that have the award (if issued by AMSAT) by visiting my website http://www.amsatnet.com/awards.html

The first award is the Satellite Communicators' Club. This award is given to any operator for having made their first contact. To apply for this award you need to send a report of your contact to AMSAT SCC Manager, 850 Sligo Ave., Silver Spring, MD 20910. You also need to send 2 units of postage and $1 for members and $2 for non-members.

The next award takes a little bit more work. It is the Oscar Satellite Communications Achievement Award. This is for working 20 contacts on any satellite. A contact is defined as one with a station in another state, DXCC country or Canadian call area. Once you have a contact with a station in that area, you must hunt for another. So, if you work 6 Canadian stations that are all VE3's, then you can only submit one of them towards this award. To submit for this award, you need to send copies of the front and backs of your confirmed QSL cards to KK5DO Bruce Paige, AMSAT Awards Manager, PO Box 310, Alief, TX 77411. The cost is $3.50 for members and $5 for non-members. Also send two units of postage for your return certificate.

The next award is the Oscar Sexagesimal Award. This is the same as the Oscar Satellite Communications Achievement Award but is given for 60 contacts. All the qualifications and costs are the same. I just received certificate #97 so there have not been many of these given out.

Next there is the Oscar Century Award. This is the same as the other two awards but is for 100 contacts. Qualifications and costs are the same.

Please note that the previous 3 awards are aggregated. Once you have worked your 20, that applies towards your 60 so you only need 40 more contacts. The same is true for the 100, once you get your 60, you only need 40 more for your 100.

South Africa has a nice award it is called the South Africa AMSAT Satellite Communication Achievement Award. It is for 25 contacts on phase 2 satellites. These satellites are Fuji-Oscar 20, AO-21, AO-27 and RS satellites. These contacts may all be in the same state or Canadian call area. You only need 25. AO-10 and AO-13 contacts do not count. The costs are the same as previous awards and are also sent to Bruce Paige.

The K2ZRO Memorial Station Engineering Award is an award for station excellence in receiving. Periodically during the year, WA5ZIB, Andy MacAllister will conduct this test. He transmits a series of 5 digits at becon strength in CW on AO-13. He will then reduce his power by 50% or 3db. He transmits another series of 5 digits. He will continue to reduce power by 50% until he is transmitting at 30db below beacon strength or level A. You attempt to copy the 5 digits to the level you can hear and send your report to Andy MacAllister, 14714 Knightsway Dr., Houston, TX 77083 along with 2 units of postage and the usual $3.50 for members and $5 for non-members. The first time you submit, you will receive a certificate. After that, you will receive endorsement stickers to place on the certificate. There is no fee for the endorsement stickers other than 1 unit of postage. Please note that this award is no longer issued as AO-13 no longer exists. It is mentioned here for history and archive purposes.

Our newest satellite award is the W4AMI Satellite Operator Achievement Award. It is awarded for the submission of 1,000 satellite contacts on OSCAR-6 or later satellites. There is an endorsement for each additional 1,000 and a special certificate at 5,000. To receive the award, send $3.50 for AMSAT members or $5.00 for non members and 2 units of postage to W4AMI Award, c/o AMSAT, 850 Sligo Ave #600, Silver Spring, MD 20910. To date, W4AMI has certificate #1, I have number 2 and Andy, W5ACM, has number 3. So if you have 1,000 or more contacts on satellite, send in for this nice award and get one of the low numbers. Remember to keep your log of every contact. Every time you say hello to your friend on a satellite, log it. In no time at all, you will have enough for the award.

There is an award from the VHF/UHF Society called VHF/UHF Century Club or VUCC and it is for working 100 different grid squares and you can receive it with satellite contacts. Endorsements are for each additional 25 grids worked. You can get information and an application from ARRL by visiting their web site at http://www.arrl.org.

Another award from the ARRL is the Worked All States or WAS. For this you must contact a station in each of the 50 states. Here again, you can request an application from ARRL headquarters. There is no 5-Band WAS for Satellite.

If you are looking for someone to check your QSL cards and can't find someone at your local club, I am an ARRL Awards Manager and can verify your cards and application. You can send your cards and application to me at my call book address. Please include sufficient postage for return of your cards, sending your application to the ARRL and getting your certificate from the ARRL. I can verify WAS, 5-band WAS and VUCC awards.

One that is not very difficult is the WAC or Worked All Continents. This requires contacting a station on each of the 8 continents. This award is also administered by the ARRL. Cards and application must be sent to the ARRL, there is no other way to receive this award.

The award that is the most difficult to attain on satellite is DXCC. This requires contacting 100 different DXCC countries on satellite and getting QSL cards out of them. Applications are available for the ARRL.

There you have it some of the awards that are available to you for all your hard work on the satellites. Some of you may not have even known about some of them and may have enough QSL cards to qualify now.

Again, the address for the AMSAT awards is KK5DO, Bruce Paige PO Box 310, Alief, TX 77411. You can also visit the ARRL website at http://www.arrl.org for applications. The ARRL awards require you to send the actual QSL cards to a Certified QSL manager and that name and address which you can also receive from their website.

Updated 30 May 2001. Original article dated 26 March 1995 courtesy of Bruce Paige, KK5DO ([email protected]). Feedback to KB5MU.