organization & anticipation
Posted: Jul 6, 2006 15:08 PDT

After I had been sleeping for about 10 hours, a bird beagn chirping "Cote d'Ivoire... Cote d'Ivoire... Wow! Cote d'Ivoire". Clearly this bird was an eager DXer on the morning opening! And clearly it was beyond time to get up.

Breakfast, another massive buffet, was already in progress. Shortly thereafter competitors and referees met separately with the chief judges. Some detailed questions on interpretation of rules were raised in the referee meeting... but only one will have relevance to contesters in the rest of the world.

Brazil radio regulations limit SSB operations to 7050-7300 kHz. After discussion with competitors and referees, the WRTC judges decided that CW operations by WRTC teams can occur ONLY outside the SSB bands. This means all WRTC teams on 40m will be operating CW below 7050... and SSB from 7050 up. (Suppressed carrier frequencies are to be used to determine sub-band limits.) I anticipate a lot of crowding below 7050!

Expanded awards represent another interesting change from past WRTCs. Not only will the team with the best score receive awards Monday night, but the best "CW scores" and "SSB scores" will receive awards. However, a team must make at least 35% of its QSOs on SSB to be eligible for the CW award! And a team must make >35% of QSs on CW to be eligible for the SSB award. So no team can afford to focus exclusively on one mode.

At 4pm began the Opening Ceremony. Flags from each country represented in the competiting teams and referees were presented to the audience. As far as I am aware, China, Mexico, Panama, Tajikistan, and Thailand are participating in WRTC for the first time. The team of young operators from PRChina had the longest trip to reach Florianopolis: 65 hours! Wow.

After a few speeches from local government officiels and the organizers, and the administration of the competitor/referee oath, we enjoyed a champagne reception.

Dinner soon... Everyone seems eager for the drawing tomorrow morning to match contest sites with teams. Then it will be a mad dash out to our assigned stations, to build the equipment, and get ready for the contest!

A few of the station sites have Internet access available, so it might be possible to blog later on Friday if I get assigned to one of those sites. But it's more likely that bloggers will disappear tonight and reappear on Sunday.

Good luck to all... and hope to hear your call from one of the WRTC sites!

73,
-- Eric K3NA

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