In challenging weather and other conditions, we already had as many as 10 activated references by the beginning of April. That is why we are starting to publish the activity rating of the RFF program.

Congratulations to everyone who cares about the RFF program on the opening of the 2024 season!

Special thanks to very first activators:
– Ulyana RY0AAN for activation of RFF-0084, Krasnoyarskie Stolby National Park;
– Valery R7KFF (who would have doubted it!) for activation of RFF-0424, "Plachushchaya Skala" Habitat Preserve area!

I hope that this year we will show noticeably more impressive results than last year.

For my part, I can announce a significant addition to our reference directory coming in the near future.

There is not enough raw data for the 2024 rating yet, I will start it when there is enough data.

I wish everyone good health, great mood, excellent propagation and many new references in the individual scores.

73 & 44! Vit, RN3ANT

Due to both known objective and various subjective reasons, this year's activity is extremely low.

Only now we have accumulated some data to publish at least some activity rating of the RFF program.

WWFF Team would like to invite all WWFF Activators and Hunters to participate in “The WWFF August Activity Month”:

The activity event will start on Tuesday, August 1^st at 00:01 UTC and finish on Tuesday, August 31^st at 23:59 UTC.

WWFF Activators are invited to aired from as many as possible WWFF areas.

A big oppertunity for our hunters to work new WWFF areas and increase their scores.

We recommend for all Activators to use the WWFF Agenda and the WWFF Facebook Group to inform the WWFF Hunter community about their plans.

After each activity the Activators have to send their logs to the log manager, responsible for the areas they activated.

The deadline for sending logs to count towards this special event is September 9^th.

To facilitate the special award processing we ask the activators — especially when using vanity/special event calls or group calls — to make sure the «;operator» field in their logs is populated with their home callsign.

The log uploaders then have a week to check and upload the logs. By September 16^th we will start generating the awards and ranklists based on the available data in WWFF LogSearch.

Participation Awards

On September 16^th WWFF will publish awards for Activators and Hunters.

ACTIVATOR PARTICIPATION AWARD

For activating WWFF references during “The WWFF August Activity Month“ activators should cummulate at least 220 QSOs from valid WWFF reference(s).

HUNTER AWARDS

For hunting WWFF references during The WWFF August Activity Month:

• One more star for each 44 WWFF references hunted!!!
• 6 Stars — 264 WWFF references hunted
• 5 Stars — 220 WWFF references hunted
• 4 Stars — 176 WWFF references hunted
• 3 Stars — 132 WWFF references hunted
• 2 Stars — 88 WWFF references hunted
• 1 Star — 44 WWFF references hunted
• Half Star — 22 WWFF references hunted

New RFF references have been added to the Directories on WWFF and our website. These are RFF-1184…1406 for Specially Protected Nature Areas (SPNA) in 30 entities of Russian Federation.

Most of references were added in Krasnodarsky Krai R6A - 25.

This is followed by Krasnoyarsky Krai R0A - 24,
Volgogradsky oblast R4A - 18,
Sverdlovsky oblast R9C - 16…

Kirovsky oblast R4N - 14,
Amursky oblast R0J - 13,
Vologodsky oblast R1Q - 12,
Voronezhsky oblast R3Q - 12,
Republic of Tatarstan R4P - 11,
Nenetsky Autonomous Okrug R1P - 10.

Also few RFF-references were added to each of remaining 19 entities of the Russian Federation (R0L, R1A, R1C, R1O, R1T, R1Z, R3A, R3D, R3E, R3M, R3N, R3S, R3U, R4F, R4U, R4W, R6H, R9S, R9U), largely for protected areas created during last three years.

For the detalied list of newly added RFF references, see the RFF Directory.
For the credit boundaries of territories (GPX-files), both newly added and existing ones, please contact the RFF coordinator RN3ANT by е-mail or in the Telegram: “Russian Flora and Fauna”

This coming weekend, an amateur radio expedition is expected to one of the most inaccessible and rarely visited places, the Putorana Plateau, Lost World, the land of waterfalls and 25,000 lakes, located to east of Norilsk city in the Russian Arctic in the northwest of the Central Siberian Plateau.

Putorana, Putoramo, Petaromi, Kutaramo and even Paiturama — the most unexplored mountain range in Russia has almost more names than the number of locals. This grandiose lost world seems to have collected all the incredible records.

Here is the geographical center of Russia and Russia's Pole of Inaccessibility — the most remote from transport routes and hardest to reach point of our country. Winter here lasts eight months of the year, the temperature - as out plane's board - minus 55 degrees, and there is no frost-free period at all. And in very short but juicy summer thousands of waterfalls thaw, including Talnikovy, the highest in Eurasia. Because of the hardest accessibility of these places to explore, geographers still do not agree on the exact height of the waterfall. According to various estimates, it ranges from 480 to 700 meters).

Read more about Putorana…

Team camp will be located on the south shore of Lama Lake, one of the largest and deepest lakes in Russia, ~140 km to east of Norilsk

QRV is planned on 20, 15 and 10 m bands only, CW, SSB and FT8, expedition call sign R0BI/p. Estimated QRV time is 17 UTC 15 July — 07 UTC 17 July.
Equipment: Expert Electronics SunSDR2 DX transceiver, PA Acom-1010, Robinson RR-33 beam antenna (bands 20, 15 and 10 m)

QSO with the expedition is valid for RFF-0077 — «Putoransky» State nature reserve. QSL via RW3RN

More about Putorana (in Russian)

More photos of the Putorana Plateau

Discussion of the expedition on the Russian amateur radio forum QRZ.RU (in Russian)

After a two-year break another new RFF references have been added to the Directories on WWFF and our website. These are RFF-1084...1183 for Specially Protected Nature Areas (SPNA) in 6 regions of Russia mentioned in our previous message about new references:

Republics of Udmurtia (R4W), Karachay-Cherkessia (R6E), North Ossetia-Alania (R6J), Samara (R4H), Astrakhan (R6U) and Omsk (R9M) regions...

In addition, references are assigned  to several SPNAs in the Urals, which are the summits for the SOTA program, for our friends — supporters of the SOTA program in the Republic of Bashkiria; with a view to the expected soon a big trip of Evgeny RX3AMI around Sakhalin Island — all coastal SPNAs on Sakhalin Island, as well as several new, created in recent years, the national parks, Species Preserve areas and the Vasyuganskiy Nature Reserve.

The overall view looks like this:

R1O — 1 — in total 17
R1Z — 3 — in total 10
R3D — 5 — in total 103
R4H — 12 — in total 15
R4W — 13 — in total 16
R6E — 7 — in total 10
R6J — 7 — in total 10
R6U — 7 — in total 10
R6W — 2 — in total 6
R9A — 1 — in total 6
R9H — 1 — in total 16
R9M — 12 — in total 15
R9O — 1 — in total 17
R9W — 11 — in total 19
R9X — 1 — in total 14
R0F — 14 — in total 18
R0Q — 1 — in total 8
R0U — 2 — in totalо 5.

Next time attention will be paid to R1P, R3E, R3Q, R3R, R4C, R4L, R4N, R4P, R4U, R6A, R6I, R6L, R6Q, R6R, R9S, R9Z, R0H, R0K and R0S, wich still have 4 or less RFF references each.

The reference boundaries in the form of GPX files are still available upon request.

* * *

Due to the illness of some of the members, the expedition is preliminarily postponed to August

UPD.09.IX.2021

Unfortunately, the expedition has been postponed indefinitely. Stay tuned. . We wish to the expeditioners a speedy recovery from illness and good health in the future!

DXpedition to Moneron Island, reference RFF-0193 will take place from 15 to 31 July 2021.

It is planned to operate with RI0FM callsign on all bands in CW, SSB and FT8.
The recent and most detailed information about the expedition, plans, dates, team, equipment — on the expedition website RI0FM.

QSO with the RI0FM expedition — a unique opportunity to get into account the rarest RFF reference, as well as the Russian Federation entity and the Federal District for Sanctuary Russia Award Program.

Moneron is a picturesque hardly accessible island up to 3.8 x 7 km in size in the Tartar Strait, 50 km to west of the southern tip of the Sakhalin Island.

Moneron Island completely, together with the adjacent islands, rocks, reefs and stones, is part of Russian first marine natural park, the SPNA Moneron Island Natural Park, which is the only Russian horn-billed puffin (lat. Cerorhinca monocerata) nesting site. There are colonies of other birds on the adjacent islands and rocks, and there are sea lions and seals rookeries in some parts of the coast. Forests cover only about 20% of the island's territory, the rest of the territory is covered with "grape" meadows, where the height of grasses entwined with wild grape vines, reaches 2.5 meters.

There is no permanent population on the island.

More detailed about Moneron Is. (in Russian but there are lot of pics):
Moneron Is. (LiveJournal)
Moneron Is. (wikipedia)

For technical and other reasons, our website has been closed for a quite long time. But now it has been restored almost in full and is back in service.

What will meet us in the nearest future:

• albeit with some delay, the results of 2020 will be published in the coming days;
• a small official amendment to the Rating Rules, coming into effect already this year. It does not in any way affect the current activity, but only has to do with summing up the results of the year;
• debts for sending electronic RFF-H awards will be eliminated within the next few days;
• new references, as previously announced
• “Donation” button for those who wish to support the RFF program and the work of its website.

of attitude for specially protected natural areas demonstrates the RO3M team, which will be active since 10 UTC of August 28 until 12 UTC of August 30 from the Levashovsky zakaznik  (natural reserve), RFF-0994 (ATNO!) on 160-10 m and 2 m CW and SSB.

Transceivers FT-950, IC-746, FT-991 and Flex 6200, an ACOM-1000 power amplifier, antennas Inverted Vee for 160–80–40–30 M bands and Spiderbeam for 20–17–15–12–10 M bands will be used.

QSOs with RO3M / p during this period are also valid for:
– RRNA: Knyaginya river R-46-0090;
– RAFA: Levashovo airfield HA2Q;
– RDA: Nekrasovsky district YR-20.

A free commemorative mini-pennant will be mailed free of charge for 5 QSOs with RO3M/p (QSOs on different bands or different modes). Send your GCR and mailing address to rv3mp [AT] mail [DOT] ru

But what is the “great example”? Great example is in the fact that the RO3M team will clean area from garbage within a radius of 500 m from its location, for which they are prepared 100 garbage bags.

UPD.06.IX.2020

We congratulate the RO3M team on their successful debut in RFF (WWFF), having conducted 1132 QSOs from the Levashovsky zakaznik, RFF-0994.

The story of how this was happening is published (in Russian) on the website of the Yaroslavl Regional Public Association (ROO) of the Union of Radioamateurs of Russia (SRR).
Keep it up! Thanks!

In accordance with the award program, WWFF series certificates are issued in the electronic form — JPG files of  3510x2480 pixels size (~ 3.16 MB), sufficient for printing the certificate in A4 size with a standard quality of 300 dpi. Each certificate for printing comes with a “screen” version of 1080x763 pixels size (~ 250 kByte).

Certificates have their own numbering for each award degree. When applying for a higher (22…88 references for RFF-H or 10…50 for RFF-A) the applicant automatically “gets” all previous degrees in the form of “stickers” included, if they were not applied before; each degree with its own numbering in lists below.

Award applications are generated on the basis of QSO autoscoring and are sent to award manager automatically by clicking on the “RFF-H” (“RFF-A”) button in the “National Awards” section of your personal WWFF Logsearch account on wwff.co. Paper QSL, electronic confirmation like LoTW, eQSL, etc. are not required and are not accepted.

RFF-A — for activators of Russian references

The table below lists the numbers of all issued “RFF-A” awards with their own numbering for each degree. Sorting, searching and filtering by callsign and numbers are provided (it is enough to enter even 2–3 characters).

RFF-H — for hunters on Russian references

The table below lists the numbers of all issued “RFF-H” awards with their own numbering for each degree. Sorting, searching and filtering by callsign and numbers are provided (it is enough to enter even 2–3 characters).

UPD.26.III.2020 A week ago Thomas informed that their trip to Barneo is postponed for at least one year. Due to the global pandemic of the coronavirus, the Russian scientific drift ice camp will not take place this year.
Sorry for bad news. Hope for next, 2021 season…

On April 14–17, during their trip to the North Pole, Martina DF3TS and Thomas DC8TM will be active on air from the “Barneo” drifting ice camp as RA/DF3TS/p and RA/DC8TM/p.

The future of the “Barneo” ice camp is unclear, and because of the catastrophically shrinking ice area in the Arctic Ocean, the possibility of establishing a QSO with any other drifting ice camp in the future is becoming increasingly doubtful. Thus, in a month there will be a unique chance to add on score the RFF-0176 — the “Severnyi Polyus” drifting ice polar station.

Martina and Thomas will be active SSB on the 40, 20 and 17 M bands with an emphasis on 20 m band, most likely around WWFF frequencies of 18.144, 14.244 and 7.144 kHz ±QRM, as well as FT8 on 40–30–20–17 M bands.
Yaesu FT-991 100 watt transceiver with LiFePO₄ batteries and vertical dipoles antennas will be used.

A short (~30 min) activity is planned from the Pole itself by the special callsign DP0LE (not RFF-0176) during the raid to the geographic North Pole.

Martina and Thomas will arrive to Svalbard (Longyearbyen town and airport) on April 10 and, pending a flight to “Barneo”, it is very likely they will appear on air as JW/DF3TS and JW/DC8TM until April 13 — IOTA EU-026 and, perhaps, some Norwegian WWFF reference not far away the town (there are 7 LAFF references on Svalbard, 5 of which have never been activated before).

You can find out about this trip more detalied and precisely on the page of Thomas https://www.qrz.com/db/DC8TM

Photo: Martina and Thomas during their trip to VK-land

Prizes and remembrance certificates were mailed to all winners of the RFF Rating 2019 Top-10 activators and Top-44 hunters, thereby the line under the 2019 results is finally drawn.

Welcome to the year 2020. The new RFF 2020 Rating charts have already been published, anyone interested — stay tuned.

Results of radio amateurs activity in the RFF (Russian Flora and Fauna) award program for 2019 are summarised.

Comparing to results of previous year, the results of 2019 can be represented in one picture:

Results in general

214 logs from 26 individual activators, who activated 116 RFF-references and conducted a total of 20’387 QSO, were uploaded to WWFF Logsearch.

Also 4 teams conducted 3’494 QSOs while activating seven RFF references (8 logs):

• RZ9SFF from RFF-0398 — 236 QSO;
• RK9LWZ (and RP74P) from RFF-0137 — 2’243 QSO;
• R3ARS/4 from RFF-0037, 0067, 0140 and 0171 — 854 QSO;
• UB5O/M from RFF-0683 — 161 QSO.

Thus, 26 individual operators and 4 teams activated 119 RFF-references, and 23'881 QSOs with 6'452 correspondents were conducted in total.
It is impossible to say unequivocally, is 2019 better than 2018, or worse.
There are 2.7 times more activations, almost 2.5 times more references activated in 2019, what is undoubtedly much more than in 2018.
At the same time, the total number of activators, as well as the number of their QSOs, remained almost the same, and the number of hunters was only 60% compared to 2018.

A year ago, we suggested that QSOs with still 1–2...4 RFF references may probably be random, but already with 5 and more — most likely, demonstrate a certain interest of the operator to Flora & Fauna programs. What came out in 2019?

843 hunters vs. 537 in the previous year conducted
12’050 QSOs compared to 4’798 in the previous year.

On the background of an undeniably noticeably increased number of qualified activations, the specific “weight” of one qualified activation significantly decreased:

Probably, the explanation for such ambiguous results may be:

• on the one hand, the degradation of propagation in 2019 compared to 2018, which made more difficult QSO conducting, especially using low output power,
• and on the other hand, the implementation of the Rating, a side effect of which turned out boosting the quantity of activated references at the cost the minimum QSO number from one reference.

Perhaps the emergence of a new WWFF award for activators will slightly improve to the better the situation in 2020.

The Rating

The real competition, did not subside until the very last December days, launched between the activators for the first place. There Crimeans got themselves ahead by a considerable margin from the others. Both Valery R7KFF and Victor RA7K activated 41 references in 2019. But, since there “can be only one champion”, we had to consider additional parameters — for example, the total number of RFF QSOs conducted by each of them: R7KFF — 2800 and RA7K — 2511 QSO.

Thus, R7KFF takes I place and RA7K — II place.
III place is deservedly taken by our Rising Star — Ilya UB3APM (novice category callsign) until recently, then R2ATW (general category callsign), and now R5AF (highest, extra class). Ilya quickly mastered operating on the air in whole, and field operation, and, most surprisingly, he mastered CW in the shortest possible time, skilled to transmit by vertical and electronic keys, mastered mechanical semiautomatic key (the so-called vibroplex), and already confidently conducting QSO at a speed of 25, and even more WPM. Desire is Power!

A certaint first place among hunters in the World is taken by Vlado OM1AX, our constant chaser and assistant in almost all of our outings. Just a little behind him are Arthur SP8LEP (II) and Jukka OH3GZ (III).

There are no surprises among Russian hunters this year. As well as in the past 2018, I and II places are occupied by Valery UA4PKN and Alexander RW4PP with a minimum gap from each other. It should be noted the minimum gap from each other is not only in the Rating, but also on the air — the time between their answers on our CQs often not exceed 1–2 minutes. Crimeans here also remind of themselves — Alexander RA7KW took III place.

Valery R7KFF and Vlado OM1AX get honored prizes and all the winners of the RFF Rating get remembrance certificates. Prizes and certificates have already been produced and will be mailed to the nominees in the nearest future.

It was also decided to encourage the best hunters on continents with remembrance certificates:

• KD1CT, Robert L Emory with 15 RFF references in North America;
• ZL1TM, Andrei Chatalov with 8 RFF references in Oceania;
• 4Z4DX, Dov Gavish with 34 RFF references in Asia.

The best Russian RFF CW operators (maximum number of QSOs) — Valery R7KFF (2800 CW QSO) as activator and Alexander RW4PP (111 CW QSO) as hunter do not go unnoticed. “The Keys Connecting Continents” books will be mailed to them with an autograph of author — Valery Alekseevich Pakhomov UA3AO, an excellent CW operator and key collector.

Also, as soon as we catch Pavel RU5A, he will get from us...
…encouraging prize for the highest among all activators the average QSO number (161.5) per one reference. This will be a powerbank, which will not allow Pavel’s smartphone (or GPS-navigator) to discharge when Pavel, hopefully, will begin to go more far into the forest away from his car.

The RFF 2019 Rating charts are placed below at the bottom of the page.

UPD.04.III.2020

Prizes and remembrance certificates were mailed to all winners of the RFF Rating 2019 Top-10 activators and Top-44 hunters, thereby the line under the 2019 results is finally drawn.

Welcome to the year 2020. The new RFF 2020 Rating charts have already been published, anyone interested — stay tuned.

RFF Team

It were added 213 new references — RFF-0754...0966 (232 references, RFF-0522...0753, were added in 2018) to the RFF Directory in 20 Entities of the Russian Federation.

GPS tracks have been implemented as a necessary (and enough) evidence (proof) of the activator’s location within the boundaries of the protected area since the end of March.
Work started to prepare RFF reference boundaries in the form of GPX files for using in various GPS navigation programs. At the moment the boundaries of all RFF references in Moscow city and Moscow oblast, Karelia, the Bryansk oblast and in part some other oblasts are completed. This work requires a lot effort and is carried out step by step as time allows.
Therefore, if you need the boundaries of some specific territory, contact the coordinator in advance to get the required boundaries out of turn.

Finally we finished out some of the RFF awards, and it will be possible to apply for awards of WWFF Series (RFF-H and RFF-A) on the WWFF website since the end of January/beginning of February. The issuance of the “Sanctuary Russia” Series awards should also start in the same 2020 year.

What's new

In accordance with the precedent, if pretenders for same awarded place in the TOP-10 or TOP-44 have the same number of references at the end of the year, the number of QSOs conducted by each of them will be considered as an additional factor.

A referential indicator will be added into TOP-10 activators chart — the average QSO number per 1 activation.

Based on the practice of the previous two years, there are RFF “activators”, who indicated the RFF reference while on the air, but sent no logs for uploading either in a month, or in three, or in half a year... who did not send it at all. Or those, who failed (or did not want) to provide proof of their location within the boundaries of the respective protected territory during supposed activation, so activation could not be accepted. A list of those “activators” appears on our website since 2020. Decide yourself whether it’s worth getting involved into pile-up for QSO, spending time and making efforts if it still does not give you the desired RFF reference onto your count.

The sections “Announcements”, “Forum” and “QRP Marathon” will be removed as unclaimed on our website.

activators				hunters all over the world				hunters in russia
place	call sign	refs.		place	call sign	refs.		place	call sign	refs.
1–2	R7KFF	41		1	OM1AX	105		1	UA4PKN	90
1–2	RA7K	41		2	SP8LEP	98		2	RW4PP	89
–	UA3LMR	35		3	OH3GZ	92		3	RA7KW	66
3	R5AF	18		4–5	OH6RP	90		4	R9AB	52
–	RN3ANT	17		4–5	UA4PKN	90		5	RU6K	48
4	R9GM	7		6–7	OM3CND	89		6	RA3RGQ	42
5–6	RU5A	6		6–7	RW4PP	89		7	R6LZ	41
5–6	UA3FQ	6		8	ON4ON	87		8–9	RA4AAJ	37
7	RU9SO	4		9	DK4RM	85		8–9	RW7B	37
8–9	RA9DF	3		10–11	IW2BNA	83		10	R7KM	36
8–9	UA3LDU	3		10–11	UT5PI	83		11	UA4NBA	35
10–13	R2ABT	2		12	UR7ET	82		12	UA1ZID	34
10–13	R3YC	2		13	I5FLN	79		13	R4AN	32
10–13	RU9CK	2		14	IZ2BHQ	78		14–16	RM9RZ	30
10–13	UA4AVN	2		15	DL2ND	77		14–16	UA3AAJ	30
				16–17	IW2NXI	73		14–16	UA3GJM	30
				16–17	S58AL	73		17–18	RN2F	29
				18–19	IK3HMB	72		17–18	RU9CZ	29
				18–19	S52KM	72		19–20	RA4HQG	27
				20–21	ES1IP	68		19–20	RM6J	27
				20–21	YL2TQ	68		21	RX6LG	26
				22	RA7KW	66		22	RN1CW	25
				23–24	IZ8DFO	65		23–25	R7KC	24
				23–24	UX1IM	65		23–25	RM1O	24
				25	DL1FU	64		23–25	UA3GX	24
				26–29	HA8DD	60		26–29	R1AC	23
				26–29	IK8FIQ	60		26–29	RA9AJ	23
				26–29	OH6GAZ	60		26–29	RN3ANT	23
				26–29	ON4VT	60		26–29	RW7F	23
				30	DL5EBG	58		30–31	RA7KR	22
				31	E77O	56		30–31	UA9LT	22
				32	F8DGF	55		32–34	R6AC	21
				33–34	SP1MVG	53		32–34	UA1D	21
				33–34	SP2SV	53		32–34	UA6F	21
				35	R9AB	52		35	RT6C	20
				36	YO3JW	50		36–40	RA1AVP	19
				37–38	9A4FM	49		36–40	RA6LEL	19
				37–38	DF1YQ	49		36–40	RD3FT	19
				39–41	DL6KVA	48		36–40	UA1ADZ	19
				39–41	RU6K	48		36–40	UA3LMR	19
				39–41	YO6LB	48		41–43	R6KA	18
				42–43	F1BLL	47		41–43	UA4HY	18
				42–43	YO6CFB	47		41–43	UB7K	18
				44–46	IK1GPG	46		44–49	R7KPZ	17
				44–46	LZ3SM	46		44–49	RA7T	17
				44–46	OZ7JZ	46		44–49	RJ6J	17
								44–49	RJ7A	17
								44–49	RN4ZT	17
								44–49	RZ9OL	17

RFF Rating 2024

RFF Rating 2023. Results

RFF Rating 2022. Results

RFF Rating 2021. Results

RFF Rating 2020. Results

RFF Rating 2018. Results

Rules of RFF activators and hunters Rating