The GNOME PSK Award Series was devised by the European PSK Club on 22nd
May 2008. This was to sponsor a series of PSK awards for contacts with
QRP stations World Wide. This award series is based on the ARRL DXCC Countries List.
There are 338 current entities on the list. GNOME 25, GNOME 50, GNOME
75, and GNOME 100 Awards may be claimed by any licensed radio amateur,
club station or DMS/SWL eligible under these rules who can produce
evidence in a form of ADIF log of having contacted/monitored QRP
stations from 25, 50, 75, and 100 different current DXCC entities
respectively at the time of application by using any PSK mode. Deleted
entities don't count for these awards. Contacts count on or after 1st January 2000. The award manager is Nikolaos Georgiadis,
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. QSL-cards
are not required. Awards are issued to the person or club. The person
or club can use any legal call sign. Contacts made from club stations
or special event stations count to the credit of both the club and the
operator. All stations must be operated in accordance with their
licensing conditions. Contacts may be made from any location in the
same DXCC country. Credit will be given for contacts made on any of the
amateur bands below 30 MHz. Confirmations from the DMS/SWL stations are
accepted as confirmed contacts. All stations contacted must be "land
stations." Contacts with ships and boats, anchored or underway, and
airborne aircraft, cannot be counted. For the purposes of this award,
remote control operating points must also be land based. Exception:
Permanently docked exhibition ships, such as the Queen Mary and other
historic ships will be considered land based. QRP
operation means transmitting at reduced power levels while aiming to
maximize one's effective range while doing so. There is not complete
agreement on what constitutes QRP power. While most QRP enthusiasts
agree that for PSK modes the transmitter output power should be 5 watts
(or less). Communicating using QRP can be difficult since the QRPer
must face the same challenges of radio propagation faced by amateurs
using higher power levels, but with the inherent disadvantages
associated with having a weaker signal on the receiving end, all other
things being equal. PSK is a highly efficient, narrow-band mode that is
very suitable to QRP operation. The
submission for credit of any altered or forged log extractions or,
equally, bad behaviour on or off the air which is judged by the
European PSK Club to bring a particular programme into disrepute may
result in disqualification of the applicant from the Award Programme. Please make sure that the COMMENT field in your ADIF log contains #QRP code for each contacted QRP station, where #
tag is required. This is a mandatory requirement to make able the
manager's software to check your application correctly. The award
manager reserves the right to spot call sign for inspection of applied
contacts. The purpose of this is not to call into question the
integrity of any individual, but rather to ensure the overall integrity
of the EPC award program. More difficult attained specialty awards
(such as GNOME 100) are more likely to be so called. Failure of the
applicant to respond to such spot check will result in non-issuance of
the EPC award. The decision of the award manager on this and other
matters of dispute will be finals. All
awards are issued FREE of charge in a high quality PDF format and sent
via email to the applicants. Awards can be printed with the highest
quality and with optimal performance by applicants themselves. The
GNOME award series is issued to the EPC members only. If you have any
questions, please do not hesitate to contact the award manager. GNOME Award Series Application Procedure Since 1st June 2008 all claims for the EPC awards should be made using our UltimateEPC Award Management Software
written by DK5UR. The award applicant should re-submit his application
when claiming for higher classes of awards. The award manager will keep
all your records in our database. Please make sure before you submit
your ADIF log that you have checked it with the appropriate software. | 
