17,387 contacts in August — what an amateur radio award log shows
· 11 min read
Throughout August 2026 the award “35th anniversary of Ukraine's independence” was on the air. Over 31 days the activators made 17,387 contacts with 8,226 different stations in 99 countries. Every line of the log carries a time, a frequency, a band, a mode, the other station's callsign, its locator and a report. Together they make a fairly rare thing: a month of continuous observation of the short waves, made not by an instrument but by people.
What follows is what can be seen in it. Not “the award was a success” but concrete numbers: when the bands opened, why Saturdays weigh more than the Sun, how far FT8 reaches compared with SSB, and why amateur radio remains a hobby of wealthy countries.