RUSSIANS MAKE SOME CHANGES IN WRTC 2010 QUALIFYING RULES

By Jamie Dupree NS3T 

The final rules have now been issued by the Russian sponsors of the 2010 World Radiosport Team Championships and while some changes were made, there are a few operators who aren't thrilled with the nitty gritty details.

On his ham radio blog at w4pa.journalspace.com, Robbins called the final rules "overall, not *too* bad," but he's not thrilled with the rule that limits scores from outside of an operator's home area.

"It's not really fathomable why this was done," wrote Robbins. "Some top USA ops are going to be left out because they make a habit of trying to compete at the top of the top by going overseas to operate."

Among those who might be impacted is Jeff Briggs VY2ZM/K1ZM, who often dominates contests from his spot on Prince Edward Island in Canada.

"I am going to have to do some contesting from Cape Cod again in order to have a chance to qualify," says Briggs. "Yech" he added.

The rules limit the use of DX scores, as no more than four of an entrants top eight scores can come from outside your home qualifying area.

Some had urged the committee to also have a "wild card" category for those who don't usually operate from home, but that wasn't a part of the final rules.

"This would allow the YT1AD's, W2GD's and N6TJ's to compete amongst themselves for the deserved right to compete in Russia," said WRTC veteran David Mueller N2NL.

Mueller though praised the work of the Russian sponsors overall. "It's apparent that the WRTC committee put a lot of thought into their selection criteria."

Causing some consternation as well were the contests chosen and the scoring weight assigned to them.

After some complaints from US and Canadian amateurs, the Russian sponsors added more value for the November Sweepstakes and ARRL DX contests while cutting the points for the NA Sprints.

"For the NA Sprint to be worth more points than the ARRL DX contest... is just not right," said Ken Widelitz K6LA/VY2TT.

The WRTC committee agreed with Widelitz and reduced the value of the NA Sprint from 750 to 600 points. Also, only one Sprint CW and SSB score can be submitted from 2007 and one from each mode in 2008 (there are four sprints each year.)

The November Sweepstakes was originally given a weight of 600 points - now it will be 700. The ARRL DX was originally 620; It will remain that for those outside the US and Canada, but will be increased to 660 for W/VE operators.

The final rules also added one WRTC team for Canada, for a total of two (Africa was reduced from two to one team.) The committee split Canada with one team leader to come from VE1-VE2-VE3-VE4 and the other from VE5-VE6-VE7.

The rules use a complicated scoring system based on the individual contest and the category entry. Assisted and low power are hit the most, with a 30% reduction in their adjusted WRTC points when compared to high power entries.

As of now, over a dozen qualifying contests for the 2010 WRTC have already occurred, which might come as a surprise to some operators.

Ironically, the first was the 2006 IARU contest, which means the participants in the 2006 WRTC would be unable to claim any points for that contest.

(A list of the qualifying contests can be seen on the right of this web page.)

The committee also cleared up a point about several W/VE contests, which were originally listed as "US only." Now the November Sweepstakes and NA Sprints are for both US and Canadian amateurs.

"I think they and personally RA3AUU are doing a great job," said Alexander Avramov LZ4AX, who often operates as K3CR from Penn State University.

"I might disagree with some of their ideas, but I have to admit that they are doing everything in an open and transparent way, the same way it was in WRTC-2006."