The Michigan VHF/UHF Society will soon announce that they will be sponsoring the Golden Mitten Award. (Michigan is shaped like a mitten—get it?) As stated in the draft version of the rules, the purpose of the contest is to:
Promote operation on VHF+ bands, introduce Maidenhead grid squares, encourage Elmering, and just plain have a good time.
The Michigan VHF-UHF Society (MIVUS) Golden Mitten Award is designed to draw on several areas of Ham Radio to encourage all hams, new and old, to expand their ham radio experience. The award encourages antenna construction, base, mobile, and portable operations, the grid square coordinate system, and “Elmering” of hams.
This will be a challenging award to obtain since it requires the operator to work all grid squares in MI using VHF+ bands. In addition to introducing the Maidenhead grid square coordinate system (and tools for determining the coordinates), the award demonstrates just how far VHF+ signals can travel even using easy to build, inexpensive antennas.
It will indeed be a challenging event. there are 24 grid squares in Michigan, and operators must make all of their contacts from their home grid square. Repeater and satellite contacts are not allowed, but stations may use them for soliciting and coordinating contacts.
The award website is not yet live (I’ll update this post when it is), but when it is, it will include “plans for several inexpensive and easy to make antennas that greatly outperform the “rubber ducky” that comes with an HT and can even be used with that all band HF/VHF/UHF radio that just gets used on HF.”
It’s not completely clear whether it costs to join the Michigan VHF/UHF Society, but the online membership form does not mention any dues. For more information, contact, email President Roger Cox, W8IO, rgcox2 (at) gmail.com.
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