[CQ-Contest] WRTC 2006 U. S. National Teams???

[Ken Widelitz]

The WRTC Committee's rules on team selection reads as follows:

 b) National WRTC Teams : To honor the host countries and organizing
committees from previous WRTC events, one team will represent the hosts of
the five WRTCs, including WRTC 2006. The teams will be selected by the host
country's national amateur radio organization or Contest Clubs as follows:"
US - 2 Teams, selected by the ARRL Total 5
Finland - 1 Team, selected by CCF
Slovenia - 1 Team, selected by SCC
Brazil - 1 Team, selected by LABRE/GADX

Then today K1ZZ announces that:

"The criteria specify that the teams will be selected by the National
Societies in the host countries. Since two WRTC events have been held in the
United States, the ARRL was asked to select two teams. To maximize the
honor, the two groups that organized the first and second WRTC events were
asked by the ARRL to chose team captains and teammates."

To "maximize the honor" is a complete misstatement of fact. An ARRL official
told me that the ARRL abdicated their responsibility because there was no
upside to making the selection, only a downside. They simply did not want to
bother with it.

Now, Ward, N0AX and Dean, N6BV have certainly contributed substantially to
the contest community in their writing,  research, etc. There is no doubt
about that. They very well may eventually be ensconced in the contesting
Hall of Fame for such contributions. However, neither even filed an
application for WRTC 2006. Further, had they filed an application, they
would have been ranked very low in the points standings based on the WRTC
2006 Committee's selection criteria. No disrespect to either Ward or Dean,
but the contest results speak for itself. For the two groups that organized
previous WRTC events in the U. S. to make those pocket selections with no
input from the contesting community when K1ZM, K5ZD, W2GD, K1KI, K4BAI,
W9RE, N2IC, among others, all of whom actually made applications and have
not been selected for WRTC 2006, is a travesty.

The CCF had an actual contesting competition to see who would be their
selection. I don't know how SCC or LABRE/GADX made their selection.

73, Ken, K6LA / VY2TT