📅 The 52 week ham radio challenge - 2026 📻

Download one of the Echolink apps and get going. You can even request a QSL card for such an uncommon connection. Which country did you talk to?

Try and find an uncommon digital mode or maybe make a CW-QSO on 2 m? Use your imagination and get on the air!

Not all antennas are equal, so why not research one of your antennas or an antenna you are interested in and try to understand how it works? A magnetic loop? What is its beam characteristic and pattern? Can it handle high power? Let us know! We are eager to hear what you find out.

This challenge is about hitting the lower bands with your QRP rig: How low can you go? Can you make it to 80 m or maybe 160 m? Hint: The mode is up to you 😉

Can you get access to the HAMNET? What services did you find useful? How did you get access?

While it says this is an easy challenge arguably whistling a digimode might be very hard. Hint: It doesn't say you need to use a radio anywhere. Maybe you toot a video of yourself whistling and receive a mention back?

Maybe your mentor or someone you recently talked to or someone who helped you with a problem? Who did you chose and why? Let us know!

Whether you set up your own station or look into how APRS works or the history of it is up to your imagination. What did you find out? Did you see APRS packets? How do you they work?

Earlier you tried the lower bands using QRP and now the challenge is to use as little power as you can to make a successful QSO. How far did you get? Which band and mode did you use? Which rig and most importantly: How low did you go?

How did you localise the QRM source? What was it and how did you mitigate the interference? How long have you been dealing with it?

How did you tackle cable management in a shack full of cables? What about the cables that run to your antennas? Tell us about your power cables, feed lines and computer cables. Do you use special cables to mitigate interference? Clip-on ferrites?

There is a plethora of outdoor activity programs these days: SOTA, POTA, COTA, IOTA and even Toilets On The Air (though this mostly happens indoors HI). Chose one that you didn't yet sign up for and complete the challenge. How does it work? Was it easy to make contacts? Which references did you activate or hunt?

Offer a course, convince someone to take the exam, donate money to people or projects who support newbies – be creative!

Time to call your local hams. Who did you reach? How long did you have to call CQ for? Which mode and frequency and which rig did you use?

Whether you acquire a kit or come up with your very own transceiver design is up to you. What did you build? How well did the building go? Any problems that came up and how did you deal with them? What was your equipment used in building? How well does your device work?