To exchange grid-locator information, you must first identify your own grid locator. Recognition for microwave activity above 1296 MHz is under active consideration, with qualifying levels to be instituted in the near future retroactive to the same starting date. But only those contacts made on Januand after count for VUCC credit. For higher frequencies, the QUARTER Century Club will be appropriate. This certificate, offered for 222 and 432 MHz, will indicate membership in the HALF Century Club. Each award will be endorseable in increments of 25 for 50 and 144 MHz, 10 for 222 and 432 MHz, and 5 for 9 MHz. Individual awards will be issued per band, with initial qualifying levels as follows: 50 MHz - 100 144 MHz - 100 222 MHz - 50 432 MHz - 50 902 MHz - 25 1296 MHz - 25. The ARRL Ad Hoc Committee, which has been studying ways of promoting VHF/UHF activities, has enthusiastically recommended this program to further boost activity on the higher frequencies. It's here: The brand-new ARRL-sponsored achievement award for working grid locators measuring 2 degree longitude by 1 degree latitude on frequencies above 50 MHz began January 1, 1983. Why all the excitement? Because confirming contact with 100 2 degree × 1 degree grid locators above 50 MHz will earn you membership in the exclusive century Club - not the popular DX Century Club, but its new counterpart, the VHF/UHF Century Club, or VUCC. Wail till there is a 6-meter E-skip operation from Burrwood, Louisiana (EL58), at the extreme southernmost point of the Mississippi River delta. So, if you thought the 20-meter DX pileups on FB8WG, Spratly, or 1A0KM were bad, you ain't heard nothing yet. Though they may sound funny now, they may not be all that strange after you start hearing them used as standard QSO exchanges above 50 MHz. All those funny designators are grid locators. FM26, CN78, FN51 and DM02 are grid locators! The southern half of this tiny land mass in the Santa Barbara Channel is the sole foothold in DM02.
And those of you who live in southern California and have always dreamed of going on a DXpedition, turn your gaze on San Clemente Island.
Should you be vacationing next summer at the Cape Cod National Seashore, don't plan on relaxing at Nauset Beach: You'll be pestered constantly on 50 MHz for your rare FN51 exchange. If you live in the farthest northwest reaches of Washington state, your CN78 designator will make you very popular on the VHF bands. If you live in Virginia Beach, Virginia, you are on exclusive FM26 real estate the rest lies under the Atlantic Ocean. And determining your locator is a piece of cake! It's all about collecting grid locators, the new VHF cousin of DXCC.
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