Wereld kastelenweekend 2021

Zoals ieder jaar is er weer een speciaal kastelenevenement: het World Castles Weekend dat georganiseerd wordt door WCA. Ooit begonnen als een event dat ook maar één weekend duurde maar inmiddels verlengd naar ruim een week.

Dit jaar loopt het evenement van 11 tot en met 20 juni. Door mee te doen als chaser of activator kun je voor een speciaal (electronische) award in aanmerking komen.

Voor chasers geldt dat ze 3 QSOs moeten maken met verschillende activators binnen hun continent of 1 DX QSO. Activators moeten minimaal 1 object activeren conform de regels.

Als je aan deze regels voldoet kun je een award aanvragen via wca10yearsaward@gmail.com

Toon PD0RWL castle-active

Toon PD0RWL has been visiting a large number of castles over the last weeks. He has helped quite a few chasers reach a next award level. To give an indication of Toon's activities you will find some of his photos below.

Toon PD0RWL is de afgelopen weken actief geweest vanaf meerdere kasteellocaties. Met zijn activiteiten heeft hij een flink aantal kasteel-chasers aan een nieuw awardniveau geholpen. Hieronder wat beelden die Toon tijdens zijn activiteiten heeft gemaakt.

Toon PD0RWL at Huis Merwede PA-00204	Dussen Castle PA-00029
Typical setup with FD4 and VHF vertical	Castle Sandenburg PA-00104

New awards online available

Today a lot of new chaser awards have been made available.  You can check if there is an award for you by entering your callsign on the honor roll page.

Up till now COTA-PA has made almost 600 awards available. 

The P*10WCA event has ended

WCA turned 10 years in June and COTA-PA joined in the festivities with eight special calls. It has been a great month with an activity level we have not seen in PA ever before. 

Eight different operators PH2A, PA2GB, PA3FYG, PD0RWL, PE4BAS, PA1H, PG8M and PH0NO went out to 80 different castles, logging 8650 QSOs with 2550 different chasers from 61 DXCC. Below is the list of DXCC with more than 200 QSOs this month.

Awards

A total of 222 chasers (coincidentally a very nice number) managed to reach one of the special P*10WCA award levels: 97 bronze, 79 silver and 46 gold. 

The final chaser top 10 for the P*10WCA event is as follows:

Nr.	Chaser	SES worked	Castles worked	Points
1.	SP8LEP	8	72	1120
2.	OH3GZ	8	66	1060
3.	9A1AA	8	57	970
3.	YL2TQ	6	67	970
5.	DL1LQC	8	51	910
5.	ON4CB	8	51	910
5.	SP4GDC	8	51	910
8.	SP1MVG	7	53	880
9.	DL8NCA	8	46	860
10.	EA3EVL	7	49	840

The top 10 chasers receive a special version of the Gold award indicating their position (no.1 shown below). 

All chasers can download their award here: http://www.cotapa.org/p/wca-10-awards.html

Great work! Thanks to the chasers and activators for creating some serious activity on the bands. 

73,11, Lars / PH0NO (aka PH10WCA)

P*10WCA - third week

The third week has passed and all eight special calls (PA10WCA-PH10WCA) have been active by now - activating a total of 58 different castle references. 

Together we have managed to log 6700 QSOs from more than 2200 chasers from 62 DXCC.

In the meantime 186 chasers have managed to reach one of the award levels. There is a special page on this website dedicated to the award: WCA10 Award page

The top 10 chaser list is as follows (# stations worked, # castles worked):

1. SP8LEP (8, 46)
2. ON4CB (8, 33)
3. 9A1AA (8, 32)
   DL8NCA (8,32)
   OH3GZ (7, 38)
4. YL2TQ (6, 41)
5. SP1MVG (7, 33)
6. EA3EVL (7, 32)
7. SP10WCA (7, 31)
8. SP4GDC (7, 30)

There will still be some activities until the end of June. After all logs have been processed the final awards will be made available and QSLs will be ordered (and delivered by bureau unless you order a direct card via ClubLog).

P*10WCA - second week

We are in the second week of the anniversary event for the World Castle Award. Seven of the eight special calls have been active from 35 different castles in The Netherlands.
3800 QSOs haven been logged with 1500 different chasers.

As there are already 100 chasers that have reached award levels bronze, silver or even gold, we have decided to make the awards available already based on the activity up till now. There is a special page on this website dedicated to the award: WCA10 Award page

Note that this is a special service for the most active chasers. It is not meant to be a real-time award system. It will only be updated once or twice until the final update after all activities have been completed and processed (beginning of July).

The top 10 chaser list currently consists of (# calls worked, #activities worked):

1. SP8LEP (6, 25)
2. ON4CB (7, 17)
3. OM1AX (7, 15)
   OH3GZ (6, 21)
4. DL8NCA (6, 20)
5. DL1LQC (7, 13)
   IK2ECC (6, 19)
6. LY2KM (7, 11)
   OH6GAZ (6, 17)
7. DD0VE (6, 16)

P*10WCA - first week

The special event for the 10th anniversary of the World Castle Award is now one week old.

In COTA-PA in this first week we have had 7 special calls active (PB10WCA, PC10WCA, PD10WCA, PE10WCA, PF10WCA, PG10WCA and PH10WCA), activating a total of 17 different castles.

Propagation has at times been challenging but so far more than 1600 QSOs have been made. The top chasers of this special event - after the first week - are as follows (# stations worked, # references worked):

1. OK1DLA (5, 12)
   YL3CW (5, 12)
2. YL2TQ (5, 11)
3. DL1LQC (5, 10)
4. OM1AX (5, 8)
   ON4CB (5, 8)
5. IN3XUG (5, 7)
   SP8LEP (4, 12)
6. DL8NCA (4, 11)
7. IK2ECC (4 ,10)
   SP4GDC (4, 10)
8. OE6WIG (4, 9)
   ON4VT (4, 9)
9. UA3GJM (4, 8)
10. DD0VE (4, 7)
    HB9EFJ (4, 7)
    OM7OM (4, 7)

(*) PB10WCA logs (3 activities) have not been processed yet

Refer to this post to learn more about the special COTA-PA P*10WCA award and the rules.