This weekend is the IARU HF World Championship contest, the big contest event outside of the fall/winter contest season. This is both a phone and CW contest on the same weekend. It starts at 7:00 AM local time (1200 UTC) Saturday morning and runs for 24 hours, ending Sunday morning at 6:59 AM (1159 UTC).

The contest exchange is the stations ITU zone. This is different from the CQ zones. For those of us here in Arkansas (and the same for our Memphis, TN members) you are in Zone 7. An ITU Zone map can be found here https://www.mapability.com/ei8ic/maps/ituzone.php.   You will also hear some different exchanges. The IARU member societies will send their HQ designation. For example, ARRL will send “ARRL”, RSGB will send “RSGB”, and the Deutscher Amateur Radio Club in Germany will send “DARC”, and so on. You will hear several stations with the suffix “HQ” in the callsign indicating a headquarters club station. A list of member societies can be found here, along with the society abbreviation https://www.iaru.org/reference/member-societies/. Stations that are members of an IARU regional executive committee in Regions 1, 2, and 3 will send their respective region #. I will be sending “AC” as IARU Secretary and a member of the IARU Administrative Council (the IARU global board). This year W1AW will be operating from Hawaii, W1AW/KH6, with a host of top-notch contesters operating. NU1AW, the IARU headquarters station, will be operated from W1AW in Connecticut. Additional info and contest rules are located here http://www.arrl.org/iaru-hf-world-championship.

As an added bonus, this year is also a World Radio Team Championship (WRTC) year that occurs every four years during this contest. This year’s event in hosted in Italy and 58 teams will be competing for a bronze, silver, or gold medallion. The callsigns for these stations won’t be revealed until tomorrow (Friday) but are usually 1x1 callsigns. Info on the WRTC can be found at https://wrtc.info/. This IS a BIG deal. Stations must qualify to be a team member by placing high in several contests over a qualification period. ADXA’s very on N5DX, Kevin, has qualified and participated many times as well as K5GO, Stan.

Here is a chance to pick up a new one on phone or CW so, as always, you know what to do !!!!

73 Joel W5ZN