The “Field Flowers” QRP Marathon in 2016 was attended by 58 hams from 7 countries (ES, EW, JA, LZ, UA, UR, Z3). Moreover, the number of participants was growing from month to month. Of a total of 39 stations continuously participated in the Marathon and its activities.

The Seasonal activity days were carried out four times during the year, each of them was attended outdoors by 17 to 28 QPR fans.

Marathon participants came outdoors more than 700 times, almost 500 of them — to new for themselves places. In total 8714 QSOs with all six continents has been held in the Marathon, 4442 QSO by CW, 3772 QSO by Phone modes and 500 QSO in digital modes. 488 QSO was established through SAT-repeaters.

Vlado Z35M confidently won in the overall classification, gaining 4255 points. Andrei UA6BFE (3543 points) is at second place, Sergey EW8OO (1062 points) — at third place.

The intense competition for first place went on up to the end of Marathon, it was not clear who will be the winner up to the latest reports.

Not less interesting fight was the in the groups, resulting places was distributed the same way in “Portable” group (/P) — I place Z35M, II place UA6BFE, III place EW8OO.

First place in the “Mobile” (/M) group has again took up Vlado Z35M, but the second place was taken already by Sergey UR8QE, and the third one — Pavel RA7RA.

In the “Pedestrian Mobile” (/PM) group Victor RU3NJC won a landslide victory. Vlado Z35M came to second place and Igor RV9WIW came to the third one.

In terms of continents Vlado Z35M became the winner in the “Portable” (/P) group in Europe, Andrei UA6BFE is on the second place and Sergey EW8OO — on the third one.
Vladimir RK8A has won first place in Asia, Igor RV9WIW — second place, the third place was taken by Ruslan R0SAX.

“Mobile” (/M) and “Pedestrian Mobile” (/PM) groups in Asia did not have enough 5 participants, so the winners were not determined there.

Winners in Europe are:
— «Mobile» (/M): Z35M, UR8QE, RA7RA;
— «Pedestrian Mobile» (/PM): RU3NJC, Z35M, R2DGZ.

Ham radio operators from the Americas, Africa and Oceania did not participate in the Marathon.

The absolute winner and those who took the first place in the world in the /P, /M and /PM groups will be awarded with trophies. The winners in each of the groups on continents will get plaques. Certificates of Winner will be sent to radio amateurs, who took second and third places.

Z35M, Vladimir Kovaceski

Vlado is Absolute Winner in World. Besides that he gets World and Europe First Places in “Portable (/P)” and “Mobile (/M)” groups

RU3NJC, Victor Kozhevin

Victor is Winner in World and Europe in the “Pedestrian Mobile (/PM)” group

RK8A, Vladimir Angeli

Vladimir is Winner in Asia in the “Portable (/P)” group

Certificates of Winner

for Trophies, for II and III places are sent to all winners of the Marathon

Special prizes for the most distant QSO

in groups QRP (up to 5 watts output) and QRPP (up to 1 Watt output) with subgroups CW, SSB and DIGI

Additional awards and prizes

Andrei UA6BFE gets the Certificate for printing of 1000 “Standard” QSL cards by UA1OMS QSL Print (sponsored by UA1OMS QSL Print) for first Place in European Russia /P.

Vladimir RK8A gets the Certificate for printing of 1000 “Standard” QSL cards by UA1OMS QSL Print (sponsored by UA3LMR) for first Place in Asian Russia /P.

Vladislav UW5EJJ, who has worked with 140 different stations via SAT-transponders, will be awarded with the special pennant signed by cosmonaut Alexander Volkov U4MIR (sponsored by Cosmonaut Training Center named by Yuri Gagarin, RT3F Club Station).

Competition for the most distant QSO in groups QRP (up to 5 watts output) and QRPP (up to 1 Watt output) with subgroups CW, SSB and DIGI has collected 8 applications from participants from four countries. Special prizes for the most distant QSO (sponsor RK8A) will granted to:

An additional prize for the furthest QSO with a power of 500 milliwatts or less gets RU3NJC / p for QSO with SM7ZDI with distance of 1747 km (0.25 W).

Yoshio JH1DIS as the only most distant Marathon Participant will get a prize for QSO with VK4BLK at distance 6647 km.

Igor R2AJA gets portable lightweight, quick assembling yagi antenna for 145+435 MHz (sponsor RN3ANT) on the results of the lottery.

Outdoor QRP Activity Group thanks all the participants for their support of the Marathon and interesting stories about the field outings and invites everyone in the World to take an active participation in the “Field Flowers 2017” QRP Marathon.

We will try to do this year also interesting and contented with a variety of activities!

73! Outdoor QRP Activity Group team

P.S. We were pleasantly surprised that donation was received from one of the Marathon participants. We assure that donation was used for the Marathon goal.
Thank you OM!