RSGB HF Awards

The RSGB offer a range of operating awards for HF contacts

  • The Foundation HF Award

  • The Intermediate 100 Award

  • The IARU Region 1 Award (All Bands and 28MHz only)

  • The Commonwealth Century Award (All Bands/5-band/9-band)

  • The Worked All ITU Zones Award

Foundation HF Award

The Foundation HF Award is aimed at Foundation licence holders who can achieve this at bronze, silver and gold levels for different numbers of contacts on at least four HF bands, using at least two distinct transmission modes.

Note that QSL’s are not required for the Foundation awards.

Intermediate 100 Award

The Intermediate 100 Award is aimed at Intermediate licence holders, requiring a hundred QSOs across four HF bands.

This is a good starting point in working towards the other awards on offer.

IARU Region 1 Award

The IARU Region 1 Awards—all bands and 28MHz only versions—require confirmed contact with the members countries of Region 1, which can be tracked using the check spreadsheet downloadable from the RSGB HF awards page.

The awards have progressive levels of Class 3 (40 countries), Class 2 (60 countries) and Class 1 (all 102 countries).

Commonwealth Century Award

The Commonwealth Century Award is, obviously, based on confirmed contacts with member states of the Commonwealth.

It is available at progressive levels of Bronze (40 countries), Silver (70 countries) and Century (100 countries), and can be tracked using the downloadable check spreadsheet.

It is also available in two versions, 5-Band (80/40/20/15/10m) and 9-Band (adding 160/30/17/12m).

Worked All ITU Zones Award

The Worked ITU Zones Award is all about confirmed contact with the ITU zones of the world.

There are separate versions available: Classic and 5-Band (80/40/20/15/10m only), WARC Bands (30/17/12m only) and Top Band only.

The minimum requirements are for the Classic version, requiring confirmed contact with 70 ITU zones on the five main HF bands.

As can be seen, it is possible to progress through overlapping awards over the course of your operating career, as each award has increasingly challenging requirements.