VHF and UHF operators get less written about them than they deserve. The awards are real, the chasing is hard, and the record-keeping is fiddly in ways HF chasers never have to think about. Here is how VUCC and FFMA actually work, and how DxQSO counts them from your LoTW® confirmations.
As always: your logging program probably tracks these, and LoTW has its own VUCC award machinery (here is why we count them anyway). This is the same counting, done in the cloud so it follows you around.
VUCC counts distinct four-character Maidenhead grids, per band, for contacts from 1 January 1983. Every band is its own separate award, and the threshold changes as you go up:
| Band | Grids to qualify | Endorsements every |
|---|---|---|
| 6 m, 2 m, Satellite | 100 | 25 |
| 222 MHz, 432 MHz | 50 | 10 |
| 902 MHz, 1296 MHz | 25 | 5 |
| 2.3 GHz | 10 | 5 |
| 3.4 GHz and up | 5 | 5 |
The grid DxQSO uses is the other station's, exactly as LoTW signed it.
A four-character Maidenhead locator such as FN42 names a rectangle two degrees of longitude wide and one degree of latitude tall. The letters pick a large field, the digits a square within it. VUCC counts these four-character squares; the six-character subsquares many loggers record (FN42ka) are finer than the award cares about.
Your own grid is part of your station location in TQSL, not your callsign certificate. Every contact you sign carries the grid of the station location you signed it with, which is why getting that right once matters, and why backing up your station locations is worth doing.
Suppose your LoTW-confirmed grids stand like this:
| Band | Confirmed grids | Threshold | Where you are |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6 m | 143 | 100 | Qualified; next endorsement at 150, then every 25 |
| 2 m | 87 | 100 | 13 to go |
| 432 MHz | 31 | 50 | 19 to go |
Each row is its own award. The 6 m surplus does nothing for 2 m, and a contact counts only on the band it was made on.
The Fred Fish Memorial Award is named for Fred Fish, W5FF, the first amateur to work and confirm every one of these grids. ARRL's FFMA page lists, by number, each operator who has repeated it since. It is the purest target in the hobby: every one of the 488 grids covering the 48 contiguous United States, on 6 m, for contacts from 1 January 1983. There are no intermediate awards — you have it or you are working on it.
Two details that catch people. LoTW credits FFMA only for stations in the USA, Canada, Mexico or UN HQ New York, or maritime mobile. And the grid list DxQSO uses is LoTW's own FFMA enumeration, so the target matches what LoTW is counting rather than a list assembled independently.
Contacts with aeronautical mobile stations never count, and a call ending /AM is excluded.
The grid-line limitation is the one to keep in mind if you chase from a boundary. Your real VUCC application may be worth more than the page shows. It will never be worth less.
Most often grid-line contacts, which DxQSO counts once, or contacts whose record carries no grid.
The band exists, but DxQSO cannot identify satellite contacts, so treat that row with care.
Yes, with no partial awards. The page shows which ones you still need.
Yes. VUCC counts grids, not modes, so FT8, MSK144, SSB and CW all count on the band they were made on.
From the station location you sign with in TQSL or DX-TQSL, not from your callsign certificate. Get it right there, and every contact you upload carries it.
73, Steve, N1EZ
LoTW® is a registered trademark of the American Radio Relay League. DxQSO is not affiliated with or endorsed by the ARRL.
