[PVRCNC] [PVRC] WRTC 2026

Tue Jul 14 12:52:37 EDT 2026

Thanks Rich. I think most people understand what a terrific event WRTC, the
people who compete, the referees, the judges, the organizers, and the
people who volunteer to support it are who come together every four years
to put together a contest incomparable to any others.

PARTICIPATION IS OPEN TO ANYONE. All you have to do is put in a bit of
talent and tons of blood, sweat and tears to surpass others in your region
in the qualifying events. Or, be so good that a qualifying team leader will
choose you as his partner. Do this and you will be welcomed to the event
and if you are better than the other 49 teams you will be named as the
winner. Qualifying starts soon.
."
Or, if you haven't qualified, but you can meet standards fairly close to
the qualifiers, you can submit an application to be a referee. Less than
half of the applicants were selected for the prestigious job of keeping an
eye on the contestants to copy their Qs, observe their operating practice,
etc. for 24 hours straight in a field day style tent with a pair of stereo
headphones and a notebook being your only equipment to monitor TWO
operators running pileups at 40 WPM.or SSB equivalent.

At this point it's probably best to close the discussion. I certainly heard
no dissatisfaction. On the contrary, the usual farewell comment was, "I
hope you'll be here in 2030".
73,
Jim K4QPL

On Tue, Jul 14, 2026 at 6:14 AM Mark Griffin <pastormg2 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Richard,
> After reading your 5 points, I am even surprised they can find 50 guys in
> the Ham Radio Community that can even do that.
> I don't know the overall number of Ham Radio Contest Operators that are
> active today but I'm sure getting 50 people would be an ultra small
> percentage.
> Mark KB3Z
>
> On Tue, Jul 14, 2026 at 4:45 AM Richard F DiDonna NN3W via PVRC <
> pvrc at mailman.qth.net> wrote:
>
>> I want to follow up on what Jim had discussed.  And I don't want to be
>> elitist about this.
>>
>> This was the fourth WRTC event in which I had a role.  I qualified as a
>> team leader for 2014 but could not attend ultimately (for reasons), went as
>> a referee in 2018, went as a team leader in 2022(2023), and went as a team
>> leader for 2026.
>>
>> It is a massive, massive, massive honor to be able to go as a team leader
>> or as a team mate.  The people that qualified as regional team leaders
>> poured literally dozens (if not hundreds of hours) of time contesting in
>> the major contests and spent considerable time (and not a small amount of
>> money) qualifying.  If you look at regions like NA#1 and NA#2 and NA#3
>> (etc) there are some pretty big names that did not qualify but were in the
>> chase.  Many of them would have loved to have attended.
>>
>> WRTC is an elite event (running contrary to what I said above), but you
>> have to get good to get to WRTC.  Most every single team leader or team
>> mate was was someone I knew from prior WRTC or from contesting in general.
>> Most all of them have won either a continental or national title in one of
>> the MAJOR contests (CQWW, CQWPX, IARU, ARRL DX, etc), and many have won a
>> category outright for the entire world.
>>
>> And that just got you to the event.  You had to be better than just a
>> winning operator to make into the Top Ten box.
>>
>> From my observations and experience, the following indicators are some of
>> what it takes to just get TO the event - let alone have a chance to win it.
>>
>> #1  Can you comfortably run a pileup at 40 words per minute?
>> #2  Can you comfortably run a pileup of 3 or more stations without having
>> to stumble and ask for repeats on callsigns?
>> #3  Can you realistically say that you've put in a 200+ hour in a CW
>> contest?
>> #4  Can you realistically say that you've put in a 250+ hour in a SSB
>> contest?
>> #4  Can you say you did one or more of the above while, at the same time,
>> having an error rate of less than 2%?
>>
>> Nearly every one of the people at WRTC who were on a team can say "yes"
>> to at least 3 of those questions.  The only exceptions may be some of the
>> youth teams, but they're getting there.
>>
>> What it takes to get there is a ton of practice.  I find CW to be
>> somewhat of a perishable skill.  You may not ever lose it completely but to
>> be to the point where you can run at 42 words per minute, make 200 QSOs per
>> hour, and only bust two of those QSO takes practice - RUFZ,  MorseRunner,
>> and actual BIC radio time.  In the last 90 days, I was doing a solid hour
>> of MorseRunner practice with an average speed of about 42 WPM with my
>> topout at about 48 WPM.  SSB is even tougher as there are not commercially
>> available contest simulators for SSB.  You actually have to play in the
>> contests there.
>>
>> Top line radiosport is not for the faint at heart.  And, like competitive
>> cycling or competitive running, you can't expect to simply win an event
>> without putting in the time required to train.  And there are hundreds of
>> contesters out there who did train and did practice and did win categories
>> but did not land a team spot.
>>
>> And I'll finally note that part of what WRTC is there to do is to
>> encourage and train the next generation.  If you look at the main meeting
>> room, you would note that the crowd there was -much- younger than you would
>> see in a banquet room at Hamvention or at Visalia.  The European teams are
>> much younger and the US teams are getting younger.  We had four youth teams
>> and one of them absolutely rocked the scoring and bested some pretty damned
>> well-known names in radio sport (including myself).  So. there is a
>> significant amount of fresh blood entering the fray, and I expect that to
>> continue.
>>
>> 73 Rich M/NN3W
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Jul 14, 2026 at 2:12 AM James Jordan via PVRC <
>> pvrc at mailman.qth.net> wrote:
>>
>>> Without repeating all the recent posts, despite the attempts by many to
>>> criticize and support WRTC, I am disappointed at the criticism and
>>> suggestions to "dumb down" the premier event of ham radio contesting which
>>> occurs only every four years. Rather than repeating, anyone can follow the
>>> full event provided by the great publicity team on YouTube.or W1DED's Q5
>>> channel.
>>> I participated as a referee this year for the first time and it was an
>>> incredible experience. I've contested for years and every one of those 50
>>> teams deserved to be there as the scores show. (One or two had sudden
>>> emergency situations affecting participation.)  I was glued to my
>>> headphones SO2R style listening to my assigned team, MB4W. The guys worked
>>> through pileups, weak signals and lids efficiently, almost 100% good
>>> practice with only the occasional lapse of waiting one or two Q's too long
>>> for an ID in a fast pileup.I got a kick every time I recognized a PVRC call
>>> sign in one ear or the other.
>>> The organization and investment in this event in money, contributions in
>>> kind and volunteer time is almost too much to believe. It was a bucket list
>>> trip for me and worth every (considerable) dollar. Meeting and working with
>>> the best of the world wide contesting community and the incredible
>>> friendship of the local UK ham community was an experience I wish everyone
>>> could have. Organizational and social times made friendships with people
>>> who before were only a call sign in my logs. I hope WRTC 2030 can match
>>> WRTC 2026 and I recommend it to all serious contesters. Qualify as a
>>> competitor, qualify as a referee, volunteer in any capacity, support
>>> commercial sponsors and donate funds if you can. Finally, when it comes
>>> around, if you can't go, make a special effort to work the teams as many
>>> PVRC'ers like N8II have done.
>>> 73,
>>> Jim K4QPL
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