The World Wide Award (WWA) project (https://hamaward.cloud/wwa) was created by a group of Italian radio amateurs to bring as many amateurs as possible together in a single event.
The event offers participants several types of awards and has grown steadily in popularity since its first event in January 2024.
WWA holds each year a one-month event in January and a one-week event in July, sponsored by manufacturers including Icom, WIMO, and 4O3A. The organizers also sell merchandise and provide downloadable certificates for donors (https://hamaward.cloud/wwa/donors).
The WWA rules allow operation on the WARC bands, and IARU has received several complaints from radio amateurs about these “contest-like” activities. With more than 17,000 QSOs per hour and over 230,000 QSOs in a single day across all bands and modes (as stated by the organizers), the activity may indeed resemble contest operations.
IARU Resolution 17-1 states that IARU policy does not permit contests on the WARC bands. However, the WWA organizers describe their event as an “activity” rather than a contest and therefore do not consider it subject to Resolution 17-1.
In light of the complaints received and the possibility of similar future “activity” events, the International Amateur Radio Union intend to review Resolution 17-1 at the next AC meeting in Vienna in September 2026.
Because it is unclear whether the complaints reflect the views of a majority or a minority of radio amateurs, feedback from the amateurs would be helpful.
The WARC bands are three specific shortwave radio frequency ranges allocated to licensed amateur radio (ham) operators. They are named after the 1979 World Administrative Radio Conference (now known as the World Radiocommunication Conference) when approval for amateurs to use these bands was granted, The allocations include:
30-meter band: 10.100–10.150 MHz
17-meter band: 18.068–18.168 MHz
12-meter band: 24.890–24.990 MHz
