IARU & WRTC-2026

I don't like summer contests. Focussing on the radios is difficult when the weather is so nice. Winter is more conducive to spending long hours in the shack. The past few years I hosted guest ops for the IARU contest which left me free to do other things. The only real sacrifice is not being able to cover possible openings on 6 meters while the station is occupied.

My station is not in great shape at the moment. In the week leading up to the contest several antennas were disconnected in preparation for repairs. The work was delayed due to unusually hot weather. I got no further than replacing the rotator on the 20-15 tower. Strenuous work in sunny 30° C weather is not enjoyable and can be unsafe. Black flies, mosquitoes and ticks also plague outdoor work.

Rather than offer a deficient station to a guest op I decided to operate the contest myself. The day before the contest I climbed the tower to temporarily reconnect transmission lines where I could. That still left antennas offline or not at their best. A couple of rotators couldn't be used due to interference with work rigging. 

As usual, 160 meters was not really usable this time of year. There are no radials on the big antenna because it is the growing season for the hay crop. The Beverages are weather damaged, as often happens over the summer. Since they are in heavily overgrown bush, I was not even tempted to dive into the "jungle" and contend with ticks and other risks. I simply didn't bother with 160 during the contest. 

Since I didn't expect to be very competitive I had a very relaxed attitude going into the contest. My 2BSIQ skills are modest and I don't practice outside of contests. Also, I operate HF very little during the summer. My log shows that I made fewer than 10 contacts in June! My time on the air this time of year is almost exclusively 6 meters, which is ripe for long haul DX during the sporadic E season.

Preparation for the contest only required reconfiguring the station for SO2R and testing the amps. I opened the windows to keep the shack cool with two amplifiers running. I have air conditioning but I prefer to avoid it except on the hottest days. My entry category was SOAB HP CW; that is, no assistance and no SSB -- contesting in its raw essentials.

WRTC is a contest within a contest which, while important to the 50 teams competing in England, was of little consequence to me. They were just stations to be worked. That doesn't mean I was uninterested in WRTC. I was very interested in how my friends (including a returning gold medal winner) would do. I also had a friend participating as a referee. 

My contest

SOAB HP CW attracts many of the world's best contesters. With many of them in England for WRTC the list of competitors is smaller. That won't make me a winner but it can push me higher in the results. The following is a snapshot from 3830 two days after the contest that may or may not be complete. As always, the following are raw claimed scores and the ordering will likely change after log checking.

I would never rank so high in a non-WRTC year. Perhaps I could have climbed a position or two had I taken the contest more seriously. Certainly the station, even with its current deficiencies, is capable of more. My relaxed attitude is mostly to blame, not my skill. For example, I made no contacts on 160 meters. I checked a few times, heard no stations and didn't bother making a few CQ's before leaving. Just a few contacts, almost all multipliers, with my diminished antennas would have raised my score.

Talking it over with Vlad VE3JM after the contest there were some interesting insights. Some of those are included in this article. Our perspectives are different since he was a serious competitor and his 2BSIQ ability is far superior to mine. He and the other top competitors participated in the online scoreboard and enjoyed chasing each other when one or the other fell behind. 

I took no sleep break in this contest. It was hardly necessary since it started early in the morning our time (8 AM) and it's only 24 hours long. I wasn't active full time, opting to take breaks at regular mealtimes and to take in the fresh air. When the pile ups because fierce I abandonned 2BSIQ to run stations faster on just one radio. None of this contributes to a competitive score!

40 meter stayed open well after European sunrise, late in our nighttime. At the same time 20 meters was booming into Europe. This is not unusual, although the 20 meter opening can't be counted on when the solar flux hovers around 100. The solar maximum is long past. Soon enough 20 meters faded and the rate plummeted. It continued that way right up to end of contest. 15 meters didn't generate many workable signals in the morning despite the sunlight. A minor geomagnetic disturbance didn't help.

After a quick breakfast I grabbed a few hours of sleep then went about my day. The one thing I did before getting out of the chair was to submit my log. WRTC requested rapid log submission from all participants to assist with log checking the WRTC competitors. I had taken a few notes during the contest to correct a few log entries but, as often happens, they were too cryptic to deal with. I sent in the log as is. It was not as if I was going to win. 

Participation notes

When no band is open to Europe we notice it. This is especially true on CW. Without Europe the rest of the world seems further away. But there so many stations to work within North America. At least there used to be. That is no longer true.

There was almost nothing to work on the low bands overnight. When I'd switch bands I'd get callers for maybe 5 minutes. Then I'd hunt for stations, which would occupy me for several more minutes. After that I could CQ for a very low rate or switch bands. Yes, I had SO2R but that didn't help. There was next to nothing to work on 40 and 80, and 160 was worse.

While this was going on, the Europeans continued their high rates. Their QSO counts on the low bands dwarfed those of us in Canada and the US. Contest activity is much higher in Europe. They could also work east Asia on the high bands, which was almost out of reach to us this time of the year and sunspot cycle. Vlad, who was connected to the online scoreboard watched the Europeans run away with the contest. I didn't see that but noted to myself that I probably worked more Australians on 40 than Canadians on 80.

The situation is less dire on phone. Yet even there the decline is apparent. We see it in other contests as well. ARRL Sweepstakes rings the alarm bells since in a contest where you can work stations only once regardless of band. Our declining numbers have an enormous impact. The older hams are dying and few of the newer hams are learning CW or paying much attention to HF beyond POTA. Yet there are more hams than ever before.

This is the story that won't go away. All I can do is point the fixed antennas of my stacked yagis northeast -- that's a joke, or maybe not. I only mention the low participation because of its impact on our reduced potential in the IARU contest. I have no fantastical solutions to offer.

Another disappointment was the absence of a Canadian headquarters station. No one stepped up to put a RAC station on air during the contest. What seemed of more interest to many was trying to work all of the WRTC (MB) stations. That's more akin to playing bingo, not contesting. I believe we should aim higher.

WRTC

It was exciting to learn that fellow CCO (Contest Club Ontario) member Yuri VE3DZ made it two in a row. Our congratulations to him and Yaroslav UW7LL. In a contest there is always the element of chance. When you do it twice there is little doubt that they are true champions. Another team I know well -- Todd VE5MX and John VE3EJ -- also placed well. John is a previous gold medal winner.

This picture of the winners was taken by my friend Chris VO2AC. He participated in WRTC as a referee. His assigned team was Champ E21EIC and Dale BA4TB. When he returns home it'll be interesting to hear of his experiences.

The WRTC stations seemed of equal capability from I could hear. Their 80 and 40 meter signals were very similar strength. That comparison can't be done on the high bands since they had rotatable yagis. Often they fought for a place in the bottom 10 kHz of the band which, despite the majority of contesters doing point-and-click hunting, pays dividends. I didn't bother trying to elbow in since I was not so serious; any open spot on the waterfall suited.

We like to think that the WRTC teams are the best of the best. That's not entirely true. Many of the best contesters are not interested in WRTC. From what I heard they all handled the pile ups well, picking calls correctly. It must also be said that I and others observed instances of competitors attempting to steal run frequencies and other common infractions. Thankfully these incidents were few.

So what does make you a winner? The selection criteria are not really well aligned with the format of WRTC. For example, the world's best 2BSIQ operators operating from the world's best stations win contests. Except there is no 2BSIQ in WRTC and it's a multi-op (M/2) competition, not single op, using small stations. Successful tactics and strategies are necessarily different in WRTC.

One thing I noted that may or may not be relevant is that the winning team appears to have won on multipliers, not contacts. I thing I've always noticed about Yuri is that he is very smooth at asking needed mults to move to another band. He does it even while operating 2BSIQ -- I've listened to him operate. Perhaps that gave them an edge. But my guesses are often wrong! What do I know.

Back to work

With the contest out of the way it is time to return to station work. It's a little awkward this time of year since I have only a little room at the base of the big towers where I mow the hay. I won't ask anyone to walk into the hay with a rope since the tick risk is high. So I either wait until after the harvest or rig the antennas to avoid the need for long ropes. I do a little of both.

August is going to be busy for me and potential helpers so I'd like to get a few of the repair jobs done now. You can count on future articles that will describe the work. Now I have to get back to 6 meters to milk what's left of this year's sporadic E season.