The Al Slater, G3FXB, Memorial Award presented by the First Class CW Operators Club

The Award is presented once a year to an individual, group or society that has, in the judgement of the FOC Committee, made an outstanding contribution to the hobby that reflects the attitudes and approach of Al Slater. This came from exemplary and considerate operating standards and a high level of encouragement, friendship and support given to other amateurs, especially newcomers. Al’s whole approach to amateur radio, and indeed, to many aspects of life itself, was something that others appreciate, look up to and seek to emulate.

Amongst winners are - Bill Maxson N4AR, The Chiltern DX Club, Fred Laun K3ZO, The NCDXF, Peter Watson ZL3GQ, Lou van de Nadort PAØLOU, Roger Western G3SXW, Frank Donovan W3LPL, Chris Page G4BUE, Dave Sumner K1ZZ, Dennis Andrews F5VHY, FISTS CW Club, Dave Lawley G4BUO, Paul O’Kane EI5DI.

The citation for this year’s recipient awarded at the annual FOC UK Dinner and Social Weekend reads in October:

First licenced in 1968 he can rightly claim to have contacted every country in the amateur radio world, and many of its islands too. His DXCC total on CW was 344 at the last count. But not content with sitting in his shack, his DXFC entry, records 81 countries visited and having being active from some 28 of them!. And some of these activities have been from some challenging places like XT, 3B7, 9M0, 3X and SU, to name a few.
Some of these have been as a member of the Voodudes Contest Group, some as a member of the 5 Star DX Association and some have been small scale holiday trips thrown in for good measure. Not content with having fun at the sharp end of the pile ups he has also looked after the paper pile up of QSL cards which is the inevitable result of such trips.

He has always supported the RSGB and has given freely of his time as a Board Member ( Radio Sport, QSL Bureau/ IOTA) and as Chairman of the Contest Committee. He is a member of CDXC and his local club in Reading, acting as Chairman and Treasurer, and helping them to several firsts in NFD. Reading had only had modest success in NFD so he applied his contesting nous and they came 4th. 'Fluke' they shouted so he did it again, and again, and again, and again! (A bit of help from 'WGV we might note however!)

He took over the IOTA Contest and has both doubled the entry and has spearheaded the automation of the adjudication. Why is this important ? Because it reduces the load on the volunteers by making it easy to share the workload and reduce the manual work.

He is a prolific author and has given countless talks at both clubs and conventions. He is possibly the most widely read DX columnist in amateur radio through DX News Sheet and his RadCom column. In his spare time he has edited the RSGB Amateur Radio Operating Manual and produced the new 6m Handbook. You can believe what he writes.  He has tried it all out and his advice is sound, eagerly sought and so valued, especially by the less experienced radio amateur.

However despite all of this expertise and contacts he has proven entirely ineffective in communicating with the sun god. This must be a great disappointment to him, it certainly is to the rest of us. We urge him to redouble his efforts in this regard without delay.

Despite this, we award the Al Slater Award for 2009 to Don Field, G3XTT.