[July 7, Bled] Yesterday was a most interesting day. It started off with a rather contentious rules meeting at 9AM in the Concert Hall, a large auditorium which is hosting a music festival during the first two weeks of July. With Tine, S5ØA, and Robert, S57AW, on the podium, and all the competitors and some referees in the audience, matters got heated after going over procedures for the pile-up competition.

The Russians wanted to know if they could speak Russian without violating the rule against identifying yourself (your home call) during the contest. While this was clearly within the rules, they next raised the issue of penalties for uniques (stations that they worked while speaking Russian that nobody else would work because of not speaking Russian.) Dick, N6AA, the head referee, indicated the log checking software wouldn't penalize them for a high number of uniques, but that some call signs that didn't fit the log checking database might be busted as bad calls. He noted that if those stations were worked by more than one of the competitors, the problem would go away.

Next was the issue of off-times. Some competitors didn't grasp the concept that you had to take off-times in a minimum one hour increment. They wanted to know what would happen if you ran out of your twenty hours of operating with 30 minutes left in the contest. The answer was you hadn't taken four hours off with one hour minimums and you were DQ'd (disqualified). With regard to off-times, things got more contentious over the rule indicating you could listen during off-times. No other contest that I know of that has an off-time requirement allows this. The issue is, can you map multipliers during off-times and then quickly work them when you come on the air. This was a strategy we intended to employ, given this unusual rule. But when one of the competitors asked about this, Robert reacted as if he hadn't thought anyone would stretch this rule clearly not in keeping with good contesting standards. He even asked for a show of hands as to how many favored being allowed to map mults during off-times. This from a committee that had made it clear they made the rules and the competitors just followed them. It was left as an issue to be decided by the referees committee, and we will find out the results at this morning's meeting before drawing our calls. Also left in the air was whether we would have to sign our calls after each contact.

Other unusual rule clarifications were that once the envelopes with call assignments were opened five minutes before the start of the contest, no transmissions can be made until the contest starts. So much for holding a frequency to open the contest.

I had the afternoon off since my teammate, Randy, K5ZD, was doing both the pile-up tapes. Dave, K6LL, and I walked around town some, changed some dollars to tollars and went to the office to get online. While we were there one of the Italian teams checked in. I mentioned the pile-up competition was in progress, and they should head over there right away. Turns out they just didn't take the phone pile-up tape. I guess some guys don't take this as seriously as others. Randy later told me that he thought we did well.

The formal opening ceremony was in the evening on the big patio at the Tourist Center. All the teams marched in by nationality. Marching in gave me minor chills. There were some speeches, including one by Tine and one by Bled's mayor, some entertainment by an accordian accompanied folk dance group and a girl's hip hop team. Then it was back to the Ice Hall for dinner sponsored by the WRTC '90 and WRTC'96 leadership. It was announced that the Yankee Clipper Contest Club and Club Finland had expressed interest in hosting WRTC 2004.