Pursuing the ARRL Semiquincentennial America250 Worked All States Award
de Joe W4TV
The ARRL Semiquincentennial America250 Worked All States Award is a year-long Worked-All-States operating event celebrating the 250th anniversary (Semiquincentennial) of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Points are conferred for QSOs confirmed via LoTW.
To pursue the operating even using DXLab's Realtime Award Tracking for WAS,
Create a copy of your current My QTH and name this copy so that you will recognize it as special for the year - like WAS 2026
Check the WAS box in your WAS 2026 myQTH
Clear the WAS box in all other My QTHs
On the Log tab of DXKeeper's Configuration window, set the Default MyQTH ID to WAS 2026
Terminate SpotCollector if it's running
In the WAS Bands & Modes panel on the Awards tab of DXKeeper's Configuration window,
- uncheck all band boxes
uncheck the QRP, SAT, FT8, and FT4 boxes
check the Mixed (Basic), Phone, CW, RTTY, and Digital boxes
if the Realtime Award Progress box is unchecked, check it and allow DXKeeper to populate its WAS Realtime Award Tracking table
if the Realtime Award Progress box is checked click the Recompute button at the bottom of the Check Progress tab of DXKeeper's Main window, and wait for this operation to complete
Start SpotCollector; on the right side of its Configuration window's Spot Database tab, click the Recompute button
Review the Schedule of State Activations
At 0Z on each Wednesday in 2026, update DXView's Override List to specify the W1AW/X stations that will be active during the next 7 days; specify each W1AW/X station's State by specifying <Pri:XX> in its Override entry's Location field, e.g. <Pri:FL>
Progress Reporting
Download this zip archive and extract the four files it contains into DXKeeper's Scripts folder.
You can invoke a script by clicking the Scripts button in the Filter panel at the bottom of the Main window's Log QSOs tab.
Script |
Function |
WAS 250.txt |
generates and displays a progress report for the basic America 250 WAS award |
WAS 250 Triple Play.txt |
generates and displays a progress report for the Triple Play endorsement |
WAS 250 W1AW.txt |
generates and displays a progress report for the W1AW-portable endorsement |
WAS 250 Club.txt |
generates and displays a progress report for the Affiliated Club endorsement |
W1AW-portable endorsement
Because DXKeeper initializes QSO location data from the most recent QSO with a given callsign, it is recommended that entries for W1AW/0-W1AW/9 be added to DXView's Overrides List with a <PRI:xx> entry in the location field that specifies the 2-letter abbreviation of the station's state during the current/next week-long operation, e.g. <PRI:FL> for Florida. Now that DXView version 5.0.7 can import Overrides from a file, a set of 29 files with names in format W1AW-MMDD.csv are available from this folder in the DXLab Discussion Group. MMDD designates the month and day that the overrides contained in the file become active - the start date for the earliest operation of the specified callsign - and contains overrides valid until the next operation using the same callsign.
Import the next override file shortly before 0000z each Wednesday, which is Tuesday afternoon/evening in the US. There are some weeks for which a new override should not be imported, either because there may not be a W1AW-portable operation that week or because all necessary overrides for that week have already been loaded.
Note: the override files only assure that DXKeeper logs the correct state. If you want activity notification in SpotCollector, place, W1AW/0, W1AW/1, W1AW/2, W1AW/3, W1AW/4, W1AW/5, W1AW/6, W1AW/7, W1AW/8, W1AW/9, W1AW/KH2, W1AW/KH6, and W1AW/KL7 in SpotCollector's Special Callsigns List with a LeaderBoard tag; update the LeaderBoard Start Date on Wednesday at 0000z of each week.
The current operating schedule can be viewed here or in this spreadsheet.
Affiliated Club endorsement
To enable SpotCollector to highlight currently-active Affiliated Club Callsigns and to enable DXKeeper's WAS 250 Club.txt script to generate an accurate progress report,
Download either arrl_club.txt or arrl_LotW.txt from this folder in the DXLab Discussion Group.
arrl_club.txt contains all of the club callsigns in the ARRL Affiliated Clubs database
arrl_LotW.txt is a smaller file containing only those club callsigns in the ARRL Affiliated Clubs database that have uploaded LoTW prior to 2026-01-19
on the Special Callsigns tab of SpotCollector's Configuration window,
click the Load button near the upper-left corner
select either the arrl_club.txt or the arrl_LotW.txt file that you downloaded in step 1 above
on the General tab of DXKeeper's Configuration window, check the Options panel's Log Special Callsign Tags box
Post a question or suggestion on the DXLab Discussion Group