A Year-Long Worked-All-States Operating Event Celebrating the 250th Anniversary (Semiquincentennial) of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

PUBLIC:  

State Activations Schedule {check back for updates}

Applying for the WAS Award in LoTW  |  LoTW WAS Award Rules Setup

January QST Announcement (page link to follow)

ARRL's Semiquincentennial America250 Worked All States Award

 

As announced in the January 2026 issue of QST (see announcement link above), ARRL is celebrating a year-long Worked-All-States operating event celebrating America's 250th Anniversary.

This is in conjuction with ARRL's 2026 Year of The Club celebration (be sure to check out all of the club oriented activities planned in 2026!).
________________________________________________________________________________

In similar fashion to the 2014 ARRL Centennial Celebration, and the 2018 International Grid Chase, and 2023 Volunteer's On The Air events, this event will be exclusively driven only by QSOs uploaded to Logbook of The World (LoTW).

Highlights of the event include:

- Work State toward achieving your America250 WAS by contacting W1AW/Portable Stations: There will be week-long activations of portable W1AW/portable stations in all 50 states, and in several US Possessions/Territories, that will generate on-air activity to achive this unique WAS Award. For this operating event, ARRL will provide a listing of all W1AW/portable stations, who will each operate for 7 days (from a Wednesday through the following Tuesday) for 2 separate weeks in the year (an early week between January and July, and a late week between July and December). A few weeks will be listed as non-W1AW/portable weeks due to contests and ARRL Field Day.

There will be three (3) specialty Endorsements, including:

• Earn WAS by contacting W1AW/portable stations in all 50 states (applying for this endorsement will become possible sometime into July or thereafter when the first wave of 50-state activations is completed and the second wave of state activations is underway).

• Earn WAS by contacting ARRL Affiliated Club stations in all 50 states (see our Club Search web page to determine the locations and call signs of ARRL Affiliated Clubs).

• Earn WAS Triple Play by contacting all 50 states on all three modes (CW/Phone/Digital)

Objective
While the object of the America250 WAS event is to make as many contacts with W1AW/portable states as possible, on as many bands and modes as possible (except 60 Meters), all operators are encouraged to explain celebrating America’s 250th anniversary with the ARRL America250 WAS Award to the degree that your operating time allows.

Bands
Activity is encouraged on all US FCC authorized bands (including WARC bands) from 2200 meters LF through all of HF, through all of VHF/UHF/SHF, and up through all of the microwave bands including
via light (but excluding 60 Meters) via peer-to-peer (eg, FM simplex) RF contacts (contacts made throught Linking Systems or Repeaters will not count).

QSLs
There are no planned QSL cards for any of the W1AW/portable America250 WAS operating event stations during this event. All W1AW/portable contacts will be confirmed via LoTW.

Stations who contact W1AW at ARRL HQ can upload such contacts to LoTW and/or send QSL cards (with SASE) to W1AW, ARRL HQ, 225 Main St., Newington, CT 06111 — for contacts only made directly with the W1AW Hiram Percy Maxim Memorial Station.

America250 WAS Applications
Applications for the America250 WAS Award must be made via LoTW once a minimum of 50 state QSO
confirmations appear in LoTW for contacts made in 2026. To apply within LoTW, look at your usual LoTW WAS page summaries, which will show your progress toward the America250 Award, then when applying in LoTW, the usual WAS Award processing fees will be displayed for the America250 certificate (with endorsements where earned) and shipping.

After the initial America250 Award certificates are issued, endorsements can be sought. These will be
supplied as America250 endorsement stickers (in a fashion similar to as shown in the certificate illustration above) that you can affix to your America250 Award certificate.

Contact awards@arrl.org with any questions.

Revisit this page regularly for updates!