update March 15th 2010:  I have been awarded certificate number 342 for the 160 Meter WAZ award.

The certificate will be endorsed with this statement: ”  1st 160 WAZ from Iceland “.

To give an idea of the difficulty of this award, the 5 band WAZ Certificate has been awarded to 1674 stations (80m,40m,20m,15m,10m) and only 806 stations have worked all 200 zones.

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I have applied for the Worked All Zones Award for 160 meters.   This is one of the oldest and most prestigious award in Amateur Radio – having its start before WWII, and 160m is the most difficult band to accomplish the award on.

Only 335 stations have qualified for the basic award and only 143 stations worldwide have accomplished contacts with all zones on 160 meters.

I applied for the basic award (30 Zones) with an endorsement for 36 Zones confirmed.

Since I applied for the award, I have received the QSL card from XE2WWW (Zone 6) and I have requested QSL cards from several stations in Zone 9 bringing the total number of Zones worked on 160 meters to 38.

I am still missing Zones 2 and 37, which should be fairly “easy” to work once there is activity from these areas.

This is the first WAZ 160 issued to a TF station.

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WAS First CW 160 meters from Iceland.

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First !! ever KH2L to TF QSO on Top Band.

Last year I almost finished a QSO with KH2L in Guam.

The contact was ruined by a  LID with a HB9 call who began calling non-stop on top of the QSO preventing KH2L from hearing his report.

Seconds later the window of opportunity was gone and I have not heard Ed on 160 meters since.

Apparently the LID was cheating by listening on a remote Web based receiver, since he probably could not hear KH2L at all from his own station.

He did not account for the inevitable delays over the internet, causing his transmissions to be completely out of sync with what was really happening.

Although this could be chalked up to a beginners mistake – after all there are many moral aspects of DXing that need to be thought about and we all make mistakes,  a cheater will always be found out eventually.

At the time I did not respond to the LID in any way, but perhaps I should have sent him an email asking for an explanation.

This morning, I saw KH2L spotted on my private DX cluster and immediately listened for him on the JA Beverage but he was quite weak.

The amplifier tripped and another 4 minute wait ensued but KH2L was still there and I was able to raise him for #140.

This is the first ever QSO between Guam and Iceland on 160 meters.

Of course the recording software did not work for some reason, I must usually start a new log file in Win-Test to solve that issue.

The contact has already been confirmed on LOTW.

While checking the LOTW award status, I discovered that I had a confirmation from SV5DKL in Rhodes, Dodecanese, which I had completely overlooked.

The DXCC-160 now stands at 141.

What a pleasure.

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First ever QSO with Ogasawara

This morning I got up early and called CQ on Top Band.

I was called by KH6ZM in Volcano, Hawaii and we had a QSO-twice !

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and later by JD1BMH in Chichi-Jima in the Ogasawara Islands.

We were unable to complete the QSO on the first try, but I called him a bit later when conditions had improved and we made the QSO solidly.

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This is the first ever QSO between Ogasawara and Iceland on Top Band.

JD1BMH sent me his recording of the QSO.

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Thanks for a new country #133 and WAZ – Zone 27!

I now need QSOs with Zones #2, 26 and 37 to complete WAZ on Top Band.

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4 New Countries with the Arctic King

Last night the band was very noisy.  I had planned to stay up all night in case conditions were good but only stayed for a short time.

I was called by 8P9NX in Barbados for a new one and later by VU2BGS and 4S7NE for two more new countries and Zone 22.

Some notable calls were FM5CD in Martinique and UK8DAN in Uzbekistan.

The day started well, with BU2AI being logged for a first QSO between Taiwan and Iceland and  Zone 24.

You may listen to the QSOs by entering the call signs.

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