1. Contest Period

The WRTC 2014 competition will be held during the IARU 2014 HF Championship.

Start:	Saturday 12 July 2014	1200 UTC (0800 Local time)
End:	Sunday 13 July 2014	1200 UTC

 

2. Frequencies/Bands
Only the 3.5, 7, 14, 21, and 28 MHz bands may be used. All participants must obey the frequency regulations of the U.S. Federal Communication Commission.

3. Modes
CW and SSB.

4. Language
Only English language and common international abbreviations can be used when operating either SSB or CW.

5. Contest Exchange
5.1 WRTC stations must send signal report plus ITU zone (W1 area is ITU Zone 08). A complete exchange must be sent and logged for each valid QSO.

5.2 No abbreviations are allowed when sending the exchange either on SSB or CW. You must say 5-9 8 on SSB and 5nn 8 on CW.  Additional cut numbers such as enn8 are not allowed. You may increase the speed of the exchange up to a maximum of 50 WPM. Voice recorders are allowed to send the exchange on SSB. It is recommended, but not required to send your call sign in every exchange.

6. Valid QSOs
The same station/callsign may be worked once on CW and once on SSB per band. Cross-band or cross-mode QSOs are not allowed.

7. QSO Points
Each valid two-way CW or SSB QSO receives the following QSO points:

QSO With	Points
ITU Zone 08	2
Outside ITU Zone 08 and within North America	3
Outside North America	5
IARU member society HQ stations and IARU officials	2

8. Multipliers
8.1. The total number of DXCC countries plus IARU member society HQ stations on each band will count as multipliers, once per band regardless of the mode. IARU officials represent a maximum of four multipliers per band (AC, R1, R2 and R3).

8.2. IARU member society HQ stations and officials do not count for DXCC country multipliers.

9. Score
The final score will be:

Score = (Total number of multipliers) x (the sum of QSO points).

The judging committee will calculate the final score for all entries based on Cabrillo logs submitted after adjudication.

10. Champions
The WRTC2014 Champion will be the team with the highest score.

11. Special Awards

• The WRTC2014 SSB Leader will be the team with the highest QSO total on SSB.
• The WRTC2014 CW Leader will be the team with the highest QSO total on CW.
• The WRTC2014 Multiplier Leader will be the team with the highest total multiplier.
• The WRTC2014 Accuracy Leader will be the team with the lowest percentage of callsign/exchange errors. [Modified May 31, 2014]

As WRTC is a mixed mode contest, a minimum of 35% of the total number of QSOs must be made on the other mode to qualify as a QSO Leader in either SSB or CW.

12. Special Rules and Disqualification
12.1. WRTC team contest stations must be QRT for at least 15 minutes prior to the contest start (by 1145 UTC). The receiver volume of both radios must be turned fully off and no monitoring or transmitting is allowed within this 15-minute timeframe. The radios may be left powered on.

12.2. The operators are not allowed to identify themselves (i.e., revealing their own callsigns) before or during the contest or reveal their team identity in any way. Any attempt to do this such as by radio, telephone, SMS, internet, email, etc., will result in immediate disqualification. Requesting QSOs (e.g., setting schedules with special identification procedures in any way) before the contest period is strictly forbidden.

12.3. You may request QSOs with any station on another band/mode. All requests must occur during the contest with no other attempt to reveal the team’s identity. All requests can only be made on HF CW or SSB, and by no other means.

12.4. Use of DX spotting (e.g., Packet, Web, etc.), skimmer or any other spotting and supplementary information network is not allowed. You are not allowed to receive any assistance to learn the callsign or exchange of any station other than by tuning the radio and listening by human ear.

12.5. The use of any callsign database or the ‘Super Check Partial’ tool is not allowed. If the logging software incorporates this kind of feature, it must be disabled. The logging computer(s) may display a ‘Check Partial’ list based only upon the callsigns already worked during the contest.

12.6. The WRTC Contest is the equivalent of the Ham Radio Olympic Games. To maintain the spirit and credibility that this name implies, the judging committee may disqualify a team that commits any of the following (but not limited to) actions:

• Violates the rules of the contest.
• Shows unsportsmanlike conduct.
• Takes credit for excessive unverifiable QSOs or unverifiable multipliers.

The decisions of the judging committee are final.

13. Callsign Allocation
The callsigns assigned to the competitors will be selected from special calls in a “to be determined” series. The process of assigning calls, stations, and referees will be randomly designated by lottery on Friday (July 11, 2014) before the contest. The competition callsigns will be given to the teams by their referee at the station 15 minutes before the contest. Team members are not allowed to know the callsign before this time.

14. Logging
14.1. Computer logging is required.

14.2. Each WRTC 2014 team must submit their log file in Cabrillo format to their referee within thirty (30) minutes after the contest has ended.

14.3. All competitors are required to use one of the following logging programs:

• Writelog
• Win-Test
• TR4W (TR for Windows)
• N1MM Contest Logger
• DXLog.net
• SkookumLogger

http://www.wrtc2014.org/competition/wrtc-rules/