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| WELCOME TO THE QSL CARD GALLERY OF HAM RADIO STATION VK4MA (EX VK3AJJ)
Ham or Amateur radio is a popular global hobby whereby individuals and clubs build their own radio stations and use these to make radio contacts with each other across the globe. It can be a competitive endeavour and in this regard award programmes have been created recognising two way radio contacts with all the countries in the world (340 different political entities - DXCC Award) and with specified island groups which total 1200 in number (IOTA Award). These two way radio contacts are confirmed by receipt of a card (called a qsl card) which are like post cards from the rare location you have contacted with information about the island or country, the radio activity that took place there, and details relating to the individual radio contact itself.
It is now common place for radio "hams" or "amateurs" to visit a remote location for the specific purpose of "radio activating" that rare entity for a period of 1-2 weeks so that other hams around the world can add that rare country or island to their award tallies. Competition to contact the rare entity can be fierce as some entities are activated only once every 20 years or so and if a contact is missed it is a long wait until the next radio activation. The competition fuels a radio technology arms race as sometimes you are competing with hundreds of other stations from across the globe all calling the rare station at the same time in what is called a "pileup".
The images on this website are the QSL cards (post cards) collected by one ham radio operator in Australia, Paul - vk4ma, vk3ajj and confirm the two way radio contacts he has made in roughly a 40 year period from 1979 through to present day. Paul was licensed as a radio ham at age 13 in 1979.
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 | IOTA Island QSLs (1091 worked - 1090 confirmed) - I no longer submit QSLs to the IOTA checkpoint as I do not agree with recent rules changes made to this programThe IOTA (Islands On The Air) Programme was established in 1964, to promote radio contacts with stations located on islands around the world to enrich the experience of all active on the amateur bands and, to do this, it draws on the widespread mystique surrounding islands. It is administered by Islands On The Air (IOTA) Ltd (called here IOTA Management) in partnership with the Radio Society of Great Britain (RSGB).
IOTA Management has grouped the oceans' islands into some 1200 'IOTA groups' with, for reasons of geography, varying numbers of 'counters', i.e. qualifying islands, in each group and has published the listings in the IOTA Directory and on the IOTA website. The objective, for the IOTA Island Chaser, is to make radio contact with at least one counter in as many of these groups as possible and, for the IOTA Island Activator, to provide such island contacts.
Currently VK4MA has contacted 1091 of the 1200 world wide island groups and has 1090 QSL cards displayed in the albums below. |
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1,888 |
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 | DXCC Challenge 10 Bands (160-6M)The DX Century Club, or DXCC, is an amateur radio operating award earned by making and confirming contacts with licensed amateur operators in the 340 entities recognised as a "country" for the purposes of the award. A more significant challenge is to contact the 340 qualifying countries on each of the ten bands commonly used by hams for long distance contacts (340 entities x 10 bands equals 3400 potential contacts). Confirming a total of 3000 is considered a level of excellence in this award.
VK4MA has a total of 3025 with 3019 of these contacts being confirmed via the cards in the albums below |
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4,983 |
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 | Worked All Zones Award (by band)The CQ Worked All Zones (WAZ) Award is sponsored by CQ magazine. The world is divided up into 40 zones with the aim being to complete a two way radio contact with a station in each zone. As for DXCC above, there are additional awards for similarly making contacts in all 40 zones using just one of the ten available ham radio bands to facilitate the required contacts. These are called single band WAZ awards and it is possible to achieve ten band WAZ - ie contact all 40 zones on each of the ten bands thus requiring 400 contacts in all |
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636 |
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5,666 |
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15 |
2,133 |
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| 15,306 files in 48 albums and 6 categories with 0 comments viewed 292,652 times |
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