IK0WRB Radio Page

The Italian April Award


On April 1, 1998, I became crazy enough to start a new Award.
To understand its name, you must know first of all that in Italy we call April Fishes what are called April Fools in English speaking countries, that is the jokes you do on April 1, mainly on newspapers.
I decided thus to create the Italian April Award which is sent to anyone contacting my amateur radio station (IK0WRB) on April 1.
Please note that this does not infringe any national nor international rules of amateur radio, because I operated only with my own call and I am free, as anybody else, to make gifts. And by the way I also hope that radio amateurs have a bit of humour...
Because of the Italian name of April jokes, all awards I give are based on fishes or anyway the marine environment.
Awards are sent, direct or via the buearu, at my own charges and I amused myself designing and printing them on my ink-jet.

Italian April Award rules

Each contact with IK0WRB on April first of every year is valid for the award.
QSO on the same band, mode and year are not valid.
With just one QSO you get the Basic Fish Award.
Contacts cumulate over the years and when you reach one of the following awards, you receive it.
  • Phone Fish Award, with a second contact in SSB
  • Continuous sea Wave Award, with a second contact in CW
  • Rtty Fish Award, for a second contact in RTTY
  • Five Fishes Award, for QSO on 10, 15, 20, 40 and 80 m bands
  • Shark Award, for QSO on all nine HF bands or 5 HF plus 1 VHF and up
  • Stations /MM get the Whale Award
  • Listeners get the Sea Wave Listener Award

This is one of the Basic Awards sent for 1998 operations


What do you think about?
Do you think I should operate again on April 1, 2002?
Send your feedbak
April Award operations took place in 1999 and 2001.


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