[CQ-Contest] How to make WRTC more like the Olympics?

[Jeff Clarke]

Here's an idea. How about having three regional qualifying events that are held during the three IARU contests before the year of the actual WRTC? Use the same rules and the similar FD type setups that are used in the real WRTC. Each team would provide their own station, generator, antenna mast and antennas. Anyone who is a resident in one of the regions could apply to be a participant in one of these events.

To pull this off you would need contest clubs in the different regions to provide volunteers to help run these events. This wouldn't be too expensive to do since each team would pay their own expenses for the right to qualify.

I could envision in the US  regional events being held in the Northeast, Southeast, Midwest, Southwest, West Coast and Pacific Northwest. There are major contest clubs in about all these regions. I'm sure this same concept could be used for other countries outside the US.

This would greatly level the playing field because most of the people who qualify usually operate from a decent station to get in. There are exceptions to this rule but it's not common. K4BAI and I qualified for WRTC 2006 in Brazil and neither of the two of us have a big station. We got lucky and things just fell into place for us to sneak in.

Every good contester should have the opportunity to get to operate a WRTC. That trip to Brazil was and still is the highlight of my contesting career. I'm so grateful to my friend K4BAI for picking me as his teammate because with the current qualifying rules it would have only been a dream to make it there.

Jeff KU8E and PW5Y in WRTC-2006

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