Its taken me 4 and 1/2 years to qualify for Worked All Prefixes. Mostly this has been achieved using low power. I wouldn’t even call it mostly QRP. Maybe 50% at most. However its all been done with low power. And by low power, im talking less than 50 watts.

For 4 years i was license restricted to 10w SSB and CW and made over 1/2 the contacts. But since upgrading and getting FT8 and other digital modes, mostly I have been running between 20 and 30w.

FT8 has been a game changer for me. I have really upped the contact rate. Like close to 1000 contacts in 6 months and that is not being very active on the bands.

So along with the main WPX award, I qualify for 3 endorsements. WPX Digital Asia, well given that I have been operating almost exclusively on FT8 that one is no surprise. The other 2 are also low hanging fruit , Asia and Oceania. If you cant work everyone in your region there is really something wrong no? LOL.

The only disappointment here is that LOTW wants $50 Usd to process the award. Add in the 3 endorsements and cost will be $100 Usd. Converting to local currency that is $150. That is an extraordinary amount of money to have an award processed. Obviously I am not going to pay that. You would have to be mental in the head to spend that kind of money to have someone rubber stamp your participation award, so that the award manager can rubber stamp your award.

Applying for the award is $12 + postage Usd. Not bad, and reasonable. But, if i wanted the endorsements then that is 4 time $12 + postage. Say about $100 Australian. So in total, I could spend $250 or 1/4 the average weekly wage to get a participation certificate and 3 add on stickers

And they say ham radio is not a rich white mans folly. I mean, come on, that is an extraordinary amount of money for a piece of paper that only has some meaning to me that I have passed some arbitrary number of contacts. Horses arse comes to mind for wasting that much money on a piece of paper.

In a follow up to this, you actually do not have to apply for the award and get extorted by LOTW. You can fill out a spreadsheet and apply directly to CQ Mag and bypass the middle man. Now they might ask you to confirm some certain contacts just to be sure to be sure, but then you are only paying LOTW for a couple of confirmations and thats gotta be better than spending a small fortune on nothing.

So I will probably fill out the spreadsheet and apply for the main award. Being a paper chaser that i am. HEHE