Australian Clubs 60th Birthday

On Thursday 18th October 1957, what was to become the Central Coast Amateur Radio Club, had it's inaugural meeting where 37 people attended. The club has been a stable part of amateur radio in New South Wales, Australia for the last 60 years, running at one point 15 repeaters and beacon stations. That has since been consolidated to a lower number but still provides analogue and digital voice plus ATV repeaters covering from 6 metres to 23 centimeters.

The club runs regular licence classes and exams, is involved in contests, supports the local WICEN (Emcoms) group and is probably most well known for its annual Hamfest, or Field day as they are called in Australia. The Wyong Field Day run by the CCARC is the largest gathering of Radio Amateurs in the southern hemisphere and it too, will celebrate 60 years on 25th February 2018.

The club is planning celebrations between the 60th club anniversary in October and the 60th Hamfest in February but as is normal with this hard working club, things will most likely be low key.

CCARC - http://www.ccarc.org.au

63 Teams Invited to World RadioSport Team Championship

The World Radiosport Team Championship 2018 (WRTC 2018) organisers have announced the 63 teams that have been invited to compete in the international event next July in Germany. The World Radiosport Team Championship is a competition among two-operator teams. Team leaders have been selected for each qualifying region based on 2 years of qualifying contest scores. Team leaders may choose any operator as a teammate to complete their team.

“This will be a very competitive field. The top three teams of WRTC 2014 in Boston will participate once again in the 2018 event!”

— said Ulf Ehrlich DL5AXX who managed the selection process

Completing alongside WRTC veterans will be a number of first-timers representing 35 countries. The mixture of experience, background and nationality should not only bring a strong competition but build comradery and friendship in the spirit of amateur/ham radio.

To be added to the confirmed teams will be a number of Youth (under 25)and Wildcard teams. 

WRTC2018 - http://www.wrtc2018.de/index.php/en/

South Africa JOTA/JOTI 2017

ZS6SSG will be running a station as it has done over the last couple of years for this years JOTA event.

This year JOTA is celebrating its 60th anniversary, and to commemorate this milestone, ZS6SSG will be running a special event call sign over the weekend (20 to 22 October 2017 ) using the callsign is ZS60JOTA.

The station will be operating on 20, 40 and 80 m bands for the weekend.