Updated CQ World Wide Contest Rules for 2018 Contest Season

CQ has announced that, effective with 2018 contests, some modifications to the CQ World Wide Contest rules have been developed and approved by the contest committee.

• The “busted call/NIL” penalty is reduced from 3× to 2×.
• Email addresses for log submissions have been removed, and the committee now “strongly prefers” using web uploads to submit logs. Paper logs will still be accepted.
• The 10× penalty for “rubber clocking” with MS/M2 entries has been eliminated, although the committee “will continue to vigorously pursue time abuses.”
• The observer program has been eliminated. “Given the absence of a reasonable pool of volunteers and supporting funding, the program has proven to be impractical,” CQ said.
• The top entry in the “Rookie” category will be awarded on a one-time-only basis. Previous Rookie winners are ineligible for plaques in this category.

WRTC 2018 Call Signs Announced

WRTC 2018 organizers have officially announced the list of call signs to be used during the World Radiosport Team Championship 2018 (WRTC 2018) competition that gets under way at 1200 UTC on Saturday 14th July 2018. The call signs to be used will be Y81A through Y89U.

Y##-prefix call signs, once used by radio amateurs in the former German Democratic Republic (East Germany) were inherited by the German government after the reunification of East and West Germany and have not been used since.

The call signs were announced during the WRTC 2018 opening ceremony today. Shortly before the competition starts on Saturday, each team leader will select a sealed envelope containing the team’s call sign. The envelope then is given to the team’s referee, and 15 minutes before the competition begins, the referee will hand the envelope to the team leader, and the team members will then quickly program CW and voice keyers.

All team members have been urged not to do anything that would connect a particular call sign with a specific team, and those operating in the concurrent IARU HF Championship are asked not to identify teams they might recognize, when spotting stations.

A live scoreboard will track the progress of WRTC 2018 teams. The  WRTC 2018 Live Scoreboard will reflect the personal call signs of the competitors.

On Thursday morning, WRTC 2018 participants and referees met for a briefing by organizers, during which competition organizers explained and clarified all rules and answered questions.

“Competitors and referees asked for a lot of detail,” a WRTC 2018 announcement said. “especially as regards correct log keeping and rating of QSOs, such as what to do when the [other station] sends the wrong zone. The guidelines given at the meeting are a building block for fair competition, which must indeed be reflected during contest operation and not only through subsequent regulatory discussions.”

A detailed briefing also was held specifically for site referees, during which the function of the power-checking meter was described and the configuration of the score-collection computer explained.

Upcoming World Radiosport Team Championship

The World Radiosport Team Championship takes place between 12-16th July 2018.

This invitation-only event pits the world’s elite contesters against each other in two-person teams. To level the playing field, all the contesters use similar stations with similar antennas, all within a relatively small geographical operating area to ensure no-one is aided or disadvantaged by local propagation conditions.

More Information - http://www.wrtc2018.de