W7GJ FFMA Award #7

issued October 13, 2015

The FFMA Award was developed to encourage collecting of 2 degree wide x 1 degree high grids across the continental United States on the 6m ham band and recognize the accomplishment of W5FF, who was the first operator to contact stations in all those 488 grids. Many MANY thanks to all the Magic Banders who helped make it possible to achieve this award during my time on the 6m band over the last 19 years!  I am especially thankful for the many 6m operators who operated portable to activate a rare grid for me, notably NJ0W, KB7Q, K7BV, W3DHJ, N0QE, K5HCT, K7VK, W7OUU, KI7JA, K7NX, K7MAC, N7CW, KI6CG, K0ND, WA6TBO, KB8U, KS7DX, K6EU, KB7ME, W9DNI, K9MU, KB5HMU, and K1NV to name a few! 

Thanks also to K1JT for the WSJT modes that were so useful (especially FSK441) in contacting portable stations in rare grids within 1000 miles of my QTH, and for JT65A to enable me to log some of these rare grids (EL58, EL84, EN86, DL88 FM13, FN51, FN56, FN57, FN67) on 6m EME!  From here in the northwestern USA, it would have been very difficult to complete contacts with many of those grids on traditional modes of CW and SSB via sporadic E skip.  And special thanks to AK3E, K1BZM, K1WHS, KB3SII, K5QE and KX8D, for the 6m EME contacts!

Thanks to the heroic efforts of KB3SII and K1WHS, who traveled up to northernmost Maine to activate FN67 on 6m EME, I completed contact with my last grid on September 28, 2015 (also my birthday)!   How cool is that?   Thanks to everyone who sent me QSL cards confirming our contacts in the required grids!  The complete list of all my contacts in the 488 grids is shown here.