For those of you who don’t know what WRTC stands for, it is the World Radiosport Team Championship, a radio contest organized such that geographic and equipment advange is minimized. The first WRTC was held in Seattle as an exhibition event as part of the 1990 Goodwill Games. The second WRTC was held in San Francisco to run simultaneously with the 1996 IARU HF Championship. Fifty-four two-man teams were selected to compete from around the world. I was immensely honored to be selected by my home contest club, the Mad River Radio Club to represent American contesting as USA Team #5 at this prestigious event. For my teammate, I chose my good friend and long time contesting partner Stan Stockton, K5GO of Harrison, Arkansas.
Prelude To The Contest
While the WRTC organizers would supply each team with a station and antennas, the teams were asked to bring their own transceivers and computers if possible. The week before WRTC, I shipped my two IC-765 transceivers, Heil headsets, cables, accessories, etc. to Ham Radio Outlet in Sunnyvale, who had graciously agreed to act as a UPS receiving depot for WRTC equipment.
Stan and I flew out on the Wednesday before the event. After checking in to the WRTC "Olympic Village" hotel, we retrieved my (undamaged) radios from HRO. That evening the organizers put on a picnic in a park with a view of the Golden Gate bridge with the competitors, judges, referees, and local amateurs in attendance (a LOT of famous calls).
Picnic Near Golden Gate Bridge
The next day (Thursday) we went on a bus tour where we visited HRO (again), Force12 Antennas, and several electronics/computer emporiums. That night was a dinner for all the WRTC participants at the clubhouse of the local Shell Oil refinery.
Setting Up The Station
Friday morning was the competitor’s meeting, with the all-important random drawing for stations and callsigns. Like the other competitors, our first hope was to get a "good" station (i.e., a big tribander on high ground). We drew the Electronic Museum Amateur Radio Club station, WB6WSL, located in Los Altos about a 30 minute drive from the hotel. We were also assigned a station referee - Steve Morris, K7LXC who would monitor our operation, and also took the sealed envelope containing the callsign we would use.
Competitor's Meeting
We were met at the station by EMARC members Omri, AA6TA and Arv, WA6UUT. At first glance, the station was not very imposing. We didn't get our big tribander, however the shot to the northwest and east looked pretty good although the big hills to the west were not too far away.
The club antennas consisted of a Wilson System I tribander with 40M and 80M dipoles, supported by a 20' tower on the roof of the 20' high building which housed the club station. The tribander checked out pretty well, although it was obviously set for SSB. The 40M dipole was another matter, showing dips at 6800 and 7400 with over 2:1 at band center. Stan, Steve, and Arv spent three hours messing with this antenna before discovering that the culprit was the nearby 80M dipole. Once the 80 was removed, the SWR curve looked just as it should. The location was not particularly quiet RF-wise, and the S-meters rumbled at approximately S5 with no signal on 40M.
WB6WSL/W6P Antennas
The shack was pretty small (8' x 10') so we had to remove almost all of their existing equipment to make room for our gear. There was just enough room in the shack for three chairs - one for each op, and one for the referee. The club brought out a small Red Cross trailer for us to use on breaks. We kept food in styrofoam picnic coolers, Field Day style, and the bathroom was several hundred feet away across an asphalt parking lot. In order to ventilate the shack, we had to leave the door open to the outside (immediately next to the SWL radio). Fortunately, the weather was perfect throughout the contest.
The Contest
We got up at 2:30 AM local time to be out at the station and ready at the start of the contest (5 AM local). Once we arrived at the station, Steve handed me the envelope with our callsign: W6P. With a good callsign in hand, Stan and I breathed a sigh of relief and started to get psyched for the contest.
We decided to do one hour shifts on the run radio, which let us each focus on making QSOs for sixty minutes, then take a break and man the SWL radio. This methodology worked out very well.
K8CC and K5GO Operating at W6P
12Z: K5GO at the start on 40 CW. Its slow going at about one per minute for the first 20 minutes, then the rate takes off. Mostly domestic QSOs, but a number of S9 JAs call in. 114 QSOs.
13Z: K8CC still on 40 CW. Glad to see the MRRC crew at ZK1AAU calling in on 40 CW with a good signal. At the end of this hour, we try 40 SSB right after sunrise - good signals, but only seven stations were there to answer
14Z: K5GO on 20 CW with the keyer speed on the IC-765 against the max stop with a non-stop pileup. Surprisingly, most ops seem to handle the fast CW speed, and we spend the entire contest around 40 WPM. 157 QSOs this hour - yyeesssss!
15Z: K8CC on 20 CW. SWL radio hears a weak N6BV/1 on 15 CW trying to run EU. We’re concerned 15M might not open, so when we hear VE3KP, we make a quick QSY for a double mult. 121 QSOs.
16Z: 20 CW is starting to get worked out, so K5GO follows the MUF upward and is rewarded with a big pileup on 15 CW. When it goes flat, he drops to 20 SSB and our first real rate on voice. A bit of humor was enjoyed when we discovered Stan adjusting the keyer speed trying to go faster. 200 QSOs this hour!
17Z: K8CC inherits the 20 SSB pile, but moves up after eight minutes. 15 SSB is almost like being in the Caribbean; "KA5XYZ five nine six...Whiskey Six Papa". On at least one occasion the Last 10, Past 10, and Last 100 indicators are all over 300/hr. We finish with a few QSOs on 10 SSB - 204 QSOs this hour - hooaahh!
18Z: K5GO takes over on 10 SSB. When it goes flat, he drops to CW and is met with another big pileup. He’s working coast to coast for 80 QSOs, interrupted only by a QSY to get W1AW/3 on 15 SSB. 15CW sounds good again, so we finish there - 148 QSOs, mostly CW.
19Z: K8CC in the chair, starts working back up the MUF again. 10 SSB is peaking - 68 QSOs in 16 minutes - wow! Finish with 161 this hour.
20Z: K5GO starts on 10 CW and hits every band/mode on his way down the MUF looking for rate, but still finishes with 120 QSOs.
21Z: K8CC spends the hour on SSB with a bunch of QSOs on 20, then moves up the MUF again. We find L75AA for a club mult, plus N7DF/ALØ and XE2DV call in. We move VY1RAC from 15 SSB to 20 CW - the only station we move all contest.
22Z: K5GO is on 15 CW, which is getting worked out, but JAs are calling in, raising hopes for some Pacific multipliers. We find a few, however it takes six minutes to work TI1C on 20 SSB. We work our first Europe (GI0KOW) at 2253Z. Only 89 QSOs this hour
23Z: K8CC on 20 CW with some 15 CW at the end. 115 QSOs, but only two Europeans, plus a few assorted mults.
00Z: More 20 CW with K5GO at the key. We’re starting to be concerned about mults, since we’re having a hard time hearing on the SWL radio. Stan spends the last ten minutes doing S&P and is rewarded with four new multipliers. 92 QSOs this hour..
01Z: There’s no CW like 20 CW! K8CC keeps milking the band - only six EU call in, but almost all are mults. Stan finds a perfectly copiable ZD8DEZ on 40 CW, but he can’t hear us. We switch to 40, call a while, then go back to 20. Ultimately, he hears us, and the double mult gets into the log. 108 QSOs this hour.
02Z: K5GO on 20 CW gets six EU mults before the CQs go unanswered. Up on SSB, the rate is good, but all domestic QSOs. 135 for the hour.
03Z: K8CC does 98 QSOs in 33 minutes on 20 SSB and 39 QSOs in 11 minutes on 40 SSB, with a short 40 CW stint in between - 164 QSOs total.
04Z: 20 meters seems to be peaking to EU, and K5GO works five mults in the first three QSOs on CW. Snagging 9K2MU from a CQ was the highlight of the hour. Some good EU mults were up on SSB, but every EU QSO is a S&P struggle. Only 64 QSOs this hour, but 17 important mults go into the log.
05Z: K8CC is on 40 CW while K5GO scans 20 SSB. We spend six minutes calling DU1SAN who is S9 on the meter with nobody calling, but finally get a QSO. However, I decide not to spend time calling the P29 who is S0 and is being conned out of a QSO by some W7. We finish with a flourish with 124 QSOs and 8 mults in the last hour.
Looking back, the IC-765s functioned flawlessly, vindicating my decision to leave the "big" radios at home. Stan's TI 5100 laptop (Pentium 90) running NA worked tremendously - when it worked. However, it crashed several times per hour throughout the contest, probably due to RF being picked up from the external keyboard, monitor, paddles, and CW interface. Fortunately, we had a spiral-ring notebook that we used to log on paper while the computer was being re-booted.
We finished with 2451 QSOs in the log, less 59 dupes (we logged everyone who called) for a net of 2392 QSOs (about 2/3 CW) and 150 multipliers for about 595K. We were elated with the score, but had no clue how our competitors did. Within a half hour, the equipment was loaded into the rental car and we were on our way back to the hotel.
Aftermath
We arrived back at the "WRTC Village" around midnight local. As the teams drifted in, it was interesting to observe the mind games going on. QSO totals seemed to be readily divulged, but certain teams were coy about their mult totals. From what we could gather, it appeared that our QSO total was pretty strong, and 595K claimed score put us in a pack of stations all around 600K. Rumors abounded that certain stations were approaching 700K in claimed score. Stan and I went to bed around 1:30 AM local after having been up for 23 hours straight.
Most competitors took their time getting up on Sunday. Starting at noon was a pool party with pizza provided by W6OAT (his business is called "Give Pizza Chance" - get it?). Meanwhile, the judges (led by Chief Judge K4VX) were hard at work checking logs. Around 4:30 PM, the final results were posted. It was then that we discovered that Team USA #5 had made the Top Ten!
While we were elated with our tenth place finish, we were interested to know the reasons why our score was reduced by 4.5%. During log checking, the judges found 23 unique QSOs, plus 6 deemed "bad" for some reason and 2 not-in-log. In the final analysis by the WRTC judges, we lost 22 of these QSOs plus a multiplier. Note that each lost QSO incurred a penalty equal to three additional equivalent QSOs.
Overall, we're very proud of our score. We wound up tenth in overall points and managed to beat the winners from the last WRTC (K1AR/K1DG, who finished 13th). While we were sixth in total QSOs, we were fourth lowest in unique QSOs which shows we know how to work people accurately. Our Achille’s Heel was our (arrrrgh!) twentieth place finish in multipliers.
Kudos From The Team
We cannot say enough good things about the way WRTC-96 was organized and executed. The playing field (40M-10M, tribanders/dipoles, 100W) was just right. The hotel was more than adequate, and the social events were superbly executed and paced to not wear anyone out. W6OAT, W6QHS, AA6KX, K3EST, K4VX and their teams worked very hard, and deserve our highest accolades for pulling off this wonderful event in fine style.
Helpers WA6UUT, KC7RN, and AA6TA
Not shown: Referee K7LXC
Special thanks from Stan and I go to Omri, AA6TA and Arv, WA6UUT who graciously let us ransack their club station and antennas to deploy our WRTC setup. Thanks also to our referee, Steve Morris, K7LXC, who in addition to being a great sport about all of this, jumped in to help with the 40M dipole. And finally, thanks to Ann, KC7RN, whose cheerful enthusiasm and willingness to make "go-fer" runs kept W6P humming along.
W6P FINAL SCORE
| Band | CW QSOs | SSB QSOs | HQ+Zones | Ctys |
| 40 | 361 | 46 | 18 | 14 |
| 20 | 760 | 436 | 41 | 41 |
| 15 | 324 | 242 | 15 | 7 |
| 10 | 114 | 87 | 8 | 5 |
| Total | 1559 | 811 | 82 | 67 |
SCORE: 568,435
W6P Hourly Rates
40 40 20 20 15 15 10 10 hour
UTC CW SSB CW SSB CW SSB CW SSB rate total
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12Z 114 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 114 114
13Z 104 7 0 0 0 0 0 0 111 225
14Z 0 0 157 0 0 0 0 0 157 382
15Z 0 0 120 0 1 0 0 0 121 503
16Z 0 0 31 83 86 0 0 0 200 703
17Z 0 0 0 23 0 176 0 5 204 907
18Z 0 0 0 0 56 1 80 11 148 1055
19Z 0 0 0 0 79 1 13 68 161 1216
20Z 0 0 2 14 49 33 22 0 120 1336
21Z 0 0 1 127 1 31 0 5 165 1501
22Z 0 0 37 1 50 1 0 0 89 1590
23Z 0 0 112 0 3 0 0 0 115 1705
00Z 0 0 90 0 2 0 0 0 92 1797
01Z 1 0 107 0 0 0 0 0 108 1905
02Z 2 0 56 77 0 0 0 0 135 2040
03Z 27 39 0 98 0 0 0 0 164 2204
04Z 0 0 55 9 0 0 0 0 64 2268
05Z 117 0 0 7 0 0 0 0 124 2392
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tot 365 46 768 439 327 243 115 89 ---- 2392