📅 The 52 week ham radio challenge - 2025 📻

Draft / Work in progress - comments welcome!

Timeline:

Challenges finalized: November 12, 2024 ☑️
Bot online (in test mode): December 1, 2024
Challenge launch: Januar 1, 2025

52 weeks, 52 challenges. Can you master them all?

This is meant to inspire you to extend your horizon in amateur radio by weekly challenges through the year that touch all aspects of ham radio (and related fields).
A lot of the challenges may be trivial for some participants (because it is what they do all the time), but very challenging to others.
Participants of the challenge are encouraged to help each other in any way possible. There's no cheating and you decide on your own success or failure.
The challenges may be done in the suggested chronolgical order, or in any other way you like. For maximum synergy and fun in comparing how it's going, going chronologically is recommended!
Participants are encouraged to post their progress, ideas, questions on Mastodon with the tag #hamchallenge. There is also an IRC channel: irc.libera.chat/#hamchallenge
You're encouraged to make use of your own equipment as much as possible, but it is perfectly OK to use borrowed equipment, or use WebSDRs/KiwiSDRs or other remote setups.
Progress is tracked by mentioning the @hamchallenge@mas.to bot on Mastodon in your toots:
- If you succeeded in a challenge, include HCnnS in your toot (where nn is the week). You will receive a point for the challenge.
- If you didn't succeed yet, you can still include HCnn in your toot about the challenge, and it will be linked.
- The bot will reply with an acknowledgement including your current score and streak length. If your toot was a direct message, the reply will be private, too.

2025

Week	Type	Difficulty	Challenge
1	😂	🟢	Create a QSL card design! Use any tools you want to create an unique QSL card design! Which information is essential, and which is optional on the QSL card? Which format (size, orientation, colors) did you chose and why? How did you chose the motive for your card? Were you inspired by a card you received and liked? What is your take on paper QSL cards in times of LoTW and ClubLog?
2	📻	🟢	Monitor as many NCDXF IARU beacons in one week as possible Write down when you heard which beacon on which band, and note which was the minimum power level of the transmission. See https://www.ncdxf.org/beacon/ for details!
3	📻	🔴	Work another continent on 80m or 160m. No antennas? Hear another continent on those bands. You can use a WebSDR!
4	🧑‍🤝‍🧑	🟠	Research the history of your callsign! Did your callsign have a previous owner? When were callsigns with the prefix you use first issued? In how far does your callsign indicate your geographical location?
5	🖥️	🟢	Update your profile on QRZ.com, HamQTH.com, etc. On which sites/databases do you have a profile? Are you keeping them up to date?
6	📻	🟢	Take part in a contest! Any type of event counts. Check out contestcalendar.com for events!
7	📻	🟢	Find out which DXpeditions are active this week. Which sources did you use? How many of the DXpeditions can you hear or work?
8	🧑‍🤝‍🧑	🟠	Encourage someone to take their ham radio license exam Everyone knows a colleague, friend or relative who may be interested in becoming a ham. Encourage them to give it another try, and offer your help!
9	📻	🟠	Try to work an FM repeater on 10m There are several repeaters on 10m FM above 29 MHz. They usually operate with a shift of 100 kHz. During high sunspot years, it's easy to work via them even with simple equipment.
10	📻	🟠	Listen to an amateur radio satellite LEO or GEO, whatever you can do with your equipment or a WebSDR. Check out sources like N2YO for satellites that are in view and give it a try. What did you hear? Did you notice doppler effect and fading?
11	📻	🟠	Receive a weather satellite image Which radio, antenna and software did you use? How good was the image quality?
12	📻	🟢	Make a contact with an "unusual" antenna. Be creative! Load up your bed springs, a light bulb, a gutter...
13	😂	🟠	Make a QSO from an unusual location and post a picture! Be creative, but please don't do anything dangerous or illegal!
14	🖥️	🟢	Implement and describe a backup solution for your ham radio log. This may include steps like: Describe/document your logging arrangements. Which software do you use, how do you merge logs? Do you keep separate logs for different callsigns? Describe how you can export/save your log, e.g. into an ADIF file Describe how you back up your file. Do you use a cloud service? Save it on a memory stick, external HDD, or NAS?
15	📻	🟢	Monitor a transmission and take notes of the field strength Monitor a beacon or transmitter that's transmitting continuously, such as the DWD RTTY transmission on 10100.8 kHz, and take notes of the field strength over the course of a week. What did you notice? Did it behave the same on all days or were there differences?
16	📻	🟢	Make a contact with a xOTA station. Make use of the DX cluster, the POTA website, SOTA Watch etc. to find stations!
17	📻	🟢	Which VHF/UHF repeater is closest to your location? How did you find out? Can you hear it? Make a QSO on the repeater if you can!
18	📻	🟠	Make a QSO in one digital voice mode. Anything is allowed: DMR/D-Star/C4FM/M17.
19	🛠️	🟠	Simulate an antenna! Which antenna type did you pick? Which program did you use? How does the process of entering the antenna work in that program? Which are the important parameters you get from the simulation?
20	📻	🔴	Decode the RTTY transmission of DWD on 10101 kHz Which radio and software did you use?
21	📻	🔴	Create a GNU Radio flowgraph! TBD: This needs a little more description!
22	🛠️	🔴	Simulate an electric circuit! Use a circuit simulator to simulate any electric circuit! If you have never simulated a circuit before, you may find on-line simulators like CircuitLab a great starting point. Here are some ideas what to simulate (with increasing difficulty): A half-wave recitifier (using the CircuitLab example). A full-wave recitifier (adapted from the CircuitLab example). A logic inverter. A transistor amplifier. A passive low-pass filter. An active low-pass filter. What are the difficulties you encountered during while setting up and running your simulation?
23	📻	🟢	How many language can you hear on the radio this week? Make a list of all the different languages you hear on the radio this week! How did you identify the languages? Did you hear some languages you could not identify?
24	🖥️	🟠	Make a contribution to an Open Source ham radio software package. This does not necessarily have to be a source code contribution! You can suggest a documentation improvement, file a bug report, submit a feature request, or if you're out of ideas, make a donation. OpenSource.radio is a good place to find Open Source projects. You may also want to browse GitHub for ham radio projects as a starting point.
25	📻	🟠	Locate local noise sources in your shack/flat/house. On which bands do you experience local noise? Try to find them using different methods: Unplugging devices, finding sources with a portable radio, ... did you manage to eliminate a source of noise?
26	📻	🟠	Observe the solar data such as sunspot number, flux, K and A values over the week. Which sources did you use? Did you notice any correlation between the values and the band conditions?
27	🖥️	🟢	Listen to the June 2025 SAQ transmission. Describe your setup! How well did you copy SAQ?
28	📻	🟠	Receive a station on 6m via sporadic E How could you tell the propagation mode was Sporadic E? What are the best times of the day for Sporadic E propagation at your location? What was the range of the stations you received?
29	📻	🟠	Make your own xOTA activation.
30	📻	🟠	Make a contact with another participant of the challenge Exchange your current score during the contact!
31	📻	🟠	Try a mode you have never tried before. Hellschreiber? JT65? Challenge counts as completed if you receive a signal. No 2-way-contact needed. Use of WebSDRs is allowed.
32	📻	🟢	Listen to a broadcast station from another country Find an AM broadcast station from a different country on the long wave, medium wave or shortwave broadcast bands and listen to their transmission.
33	🛠️	🟠	Build an antenna and make a contact with it. What type of antenna did you build and why? How did you come up with the dimensions? Which bands does the antenna work on?
34	🛠️	🔴	Match an impedance! You've got an antenna that has a feed point impedance of 36 Ohms at 7 MHz. How can you match it to 50 Ohms? Try using an online Smith Chart tool to create a matching circuit!
35	📻	🟠	Receive a weather fax transmission on HF The transmission schedule of the German Weather service, including the current frequencies can be found on the DWD website. Find out which software you can use to decode the transmissions and either use your own radio or a WebSDR to receive a fax transmission!
36	📻	🟠	Operate your whole station from battery power for one day What sort of battery did you use? How do you charge your batteries? Did you experience "range anxiety"?
37	📻	🟢	Work 10 DXCCs on FT8 (for SWLs: hear 10 DXCCs)
38	📻	🔴	Make a contact on Morse code! On the ham bands or on the internet (vBand etc.). At least give it a serious try! There are many operators willing to help you.
39	📻	🟠	Make a 2-way contact with an output power of 100 mW or less. Any band or mode is allowed. If your radio does not allow setting such a low power, go with the lowest you can, or use an attenuator! Who manages to achieve the longest distance?
40	📻	🟢	Which QSLing methods do you use, physical and electronic? Which methods do you currently use and why? Did you abandon a method of QSLing and why? What are your thoughts about the future of QSLs?
41	😂	🟠	Write a poem on your biggest ham radio pet peeve! Be creative and share your creation. It can be a classic poem, a haiku, a limerick, whatever comes to mind. The use of generative AI is discouraged!
42	📻	🟠	Receive a SSTV image Bonus points for homemade receiver and/or software!
43	🛠️	🔴	Create a 3D printable design related to ham radio! If you have never created a 3D design before, you may want to get inspirations at Thingiverse, where you will find a lot of existing projects with the Ham Radio tag. You can remix an existing design and add your own personal flavor to it, or create something entirely new! (Printing your creation is optional.)
44	📻	🟠	Receive a QRSS signal on the HF bands Check out https://qrss.org/ for a list of frequencies and fire up a QRSS grabber software like Argo (I2PHD), Spectrum Lab (DL4YHF), LOPORA (PA2OHH) or QrssPiG (HB9FXX). There are signals transmitting 24/7 on most bands that are easy to copy.
45	🛠️	🟠	Fix something that is broken. There's rarely nothing in a ham shack that needs fixing. This is your opportunity to overcome your procrastination!
46	🖥️	🔴	Write a useful computer program! The program can be built in any programming language, written or graphical. If you have never programmed before, here are some ideas of what your program could do: Calculate the length of a dipole for a given frequency. Look up which Amateur radio band a frequency belongs to, if any. Convert a letter to its representation in the ICAO alphabet (Alpha, Beta, ...) In order to get started quickly, here are some websites where you can write and run code immediately, without the need to install anything: Go: Go Playground TBD: More!
47	🧑‍🤝‍🧑	🟢	Submit an idea for the Ham Challenge 2026! We are 45 weeks into this and it is time to think about the next year. So please send your feedback and possibly an idea for a new challenge to the hamchallenge bot!
48	📻	🔴	Transmit a QRSS signal on the HF bands Find the transmitted signal on one of the active grabbers on QRSS Plus, or with a WebSDR and post a screen shot.
49	😂	🟢	Clean up your shack and post the most curious item you found. Tell us the story of the item in question!
50	📻	🟠	Receive an APRS message or beacon Can be classic APRS, or LoRa. What gear did you use, how did you decode the transmission?
51	🧑‍🤝‍🧑	🔴	Write something about ham radio with public impact. Write something for a ham radio publication / magazine / webzine, a club newsletter, blog etc. with a public impact.
52	🧑‍🤝‍🧑	🔴	Create an Infographic or Webcomic! Create and post an Infographic or Webcomic about a ham radio topic of your choice.

TBD: Bonus challenges that can be substituted for missed/failed challenges.

Credits (thanks for contributing): DF4OR, DC1MTS, G7KSE, DJ3EI, PA3DSB, DO8EW, DJ9AO, KB6NU and others.

A project by Fabian Kurz, DJ5CW (@dj5cw@social.darc.de) - Last modified: Thursday, 14-Nov-2024 06:55:07 CET