Awards in amateur radio are given for making a specified number of two way contacts (QSOs) with unique countries, states, counties or other geographical entities. One of the oldest and most popular awards is the DXCC award sponsored by the ARRL. The basic award is earned for making QSOs with amateurs in 100 different countries.
One of the first awards that most amateurs achieve is the WAS or Worked All States award. As the name suggests the award is given for having confirmed QSOs with all 50 states. It is also sponsored by the ARRL.
Another popular award is given for working 300 different callsign prefixes. In the case of my call, AA4FU, the prefix is AA4. The WPX award is sponsored by CQ Magazine.
One of the more difficult awards to earn is the USA Counties award. The USA-CA award is also sponsored by CQ Magazine. The basic award is given for confirming QSOs with 500 different U.S. counties. The hard part comes when you try to work all of the counties, there are over 3000 of them!
Another popular award sponsored by CQ Magazine is the Worked All Zones or WAZ award. For this award CQ Magazine divides the world into 40 zones. To earn the award you must work all 40 zones. While it may seem easier to work 40 zones than to work 100 counties, it is actually a little harder, since you have to work stations in all parts of the world. For DXCC it's possible to work 100 countries in just North & South America and Europe.
These are just five of the more populars awards. There are hundreds of other awards sponsored by radio clubs and magazines around the world.
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