States and Call Areas

Which state is in which call area, and what Worked All States asks of you. Print it and keep it by the radio.

Call areas 1234567890Alaska is in call area 7 and Hawaii in area 6. Drawn for OneShack from Natural Earth data, public domain. Worked All States means confirming a contact with each of the 50 states — the District of Columbia counts as Maryland for the award. ITU zones are not drawn yet: we have not found a source for the US zone boundaries that we may use, and nothing goes on this site unverified.

The Ten Call Areas

The digit in a US callsign is the call area it was first issued in. It does not have to match where the operator lives now: people keep their callsign when they move, so a W6 in Ohio is nothing unusual.

1: CT, MA, ME, NH, RI, VT
2: NJ, NY
3: DE, MD, PA, DC
4: AL, FL, GA, KY, NC, SC, TN, VA
5: AR, LA, MS, NM, OK, TX
6: CA, HI
7: AK, AZ, ID, MT, NV, OR, UT, WA, WY
8: MI, OH, WV
9: IL, IN, WI
0: CO, IA, KS, MN, MO, ND, NE, SD

Worked All States

Confirm a two-way contact with a station in each of the 50 states and you have earned WAS, the ARRL award that has been going since 1936. The District of Columbia counts as Maryland. Confirmations come as QSL cards or through Logbook of The World; the rules, the fees and the endorsements are the ARRL’s, so check them before you apply.

The states people wait longest for are usually the empty ones — Wyoming, the Dakotas, Delaware, Vermont. Watch for state QSO parties, county hunters and portable activations: that is how most operators finish the map.