Spokane DX Association

WRTC 2018 e.V., organizer and host of the World Radiosport Team Championship (WRTC) 2018, is proud to announce the 63 teams that will be invited to compete in Germany next July.

WRTC is a competition among two-operator teams. Team Leaders have now been selected for each qualifying region based on 2 years of qualifying contest scores. The Team Leaders were given the option to select any operator as a Team Mate to complete their team.

The team application and verification process was managed by Ulf Ehrlich, DL5AXX. Ulf pointed out: “This will be a very competitive field. The top three teams of WRTC 2014 in Boston will participate once again in the 2018 event!”

The five sponsored teams, all representing high level contesters, have already been announced some time ago. The selection of the Youth and Wild Card Teams required a more formal application process and, therefore, could only be completed recently.

WRTC 2018 e.V. has received seven applications from Youth Teams, representing contesters younger than 25. The selection was based on the number of qualification points, as defined in the rules. Team Leaders will be CE2MVF (9107 points), YO8TTT (7254 points) and HA8RT (5056 points). These results made it easy to decide in favor of the three Youth Teams invited to participate in the WRTC 2018 competition.

Issuing Wild Cards has been an entirely different process. Similar to the approach taken by the organizers of the WRTC 2014 in Boston we have selected UN9LW (with Team Mate UN7LZ), who missed the qualification criteria by just 24 points. Honoring the cleanest log of high scorers ZL3CW (with F6BEE) was offered another Wild Card. Because of the close competition in region EU#5 featuring outstanding results another Wild Card was offered to 9A7DX (with 9A3LG) to join WRTC 2018. We also invited YV1DIG, performing excellently behind the curtain of zone 9 DXpedition stations. Finally we unanimously selected K1DG, chairman of the WRTC 2014, well known top level contester, and champion of the first WRTC in 1990. Not only did he do an outstanding job in Boston. By offering a Wild Card to him we also wanted to express our appreciation and thanks to all of the many fine people making WRTC 2014 in Boston such a great success. His Team Mate will be N2NT – 2014 Competition Director and number five in NA#1 with 10.6 k points.

The complete list of competitors is available on our website: http://wrtc2018.de/index.php/en/competition/participants

When making the announcement, WRTC 2018 President Christian Janssen, DL1MGB, stated: “We are pleased to see a mix of veterans of previous WRTC events and first-time participants among the competitors. The teams represent over 35 countries and a wide range of personal backgrounds. While the focus will be on the competition, we are looking forward to hosting the teams and celebrating a week of ham spirit together with competitors, organizers, volunteers and sponsors during the WRTC week.”

Here is the LINK to the list of final participants. Notice that former SDXA member Chris KL9A is part of the defending champion team.