World Radiosport Team Championship (WRTC-2014) has announced the call signs that will be used by the 59 competing teams. The WRTC competitors will use 1 × 1 call signs starting with W, K, or N with the US First District designator. Sixteen of the available 75 call signs will not be used, including the longest and shortest CW suffixes (J, Q, Y and E), as well as H, a character that can be miscopied on CW. The suffix “X” is not available.

“We wanted to have call [sign]s for the teams that were distinctive and fun,” said WRTC-2014 Chairman Doug Grant, K1DG. “This will make it easy for those chasing the WRTC-2014 teams to identify them. It also provides a connection back to WRTC-1996 in San Francisco, which was the first time that 1 × 1 calls were used in the United States.”

Following the tradition of previous WRTC events, teams will not know their call signs until the referee hands them a sealed envelope 15 minutes before the contest begins. This puts all teams at an equal starting point and helps maintain team anonymity. A checklist stations can use to keep track of the WRTC-2014 stations as they are worked will appear in the July/August issue of National Contest Journal (NCJ)and on the WRTC-2014 website.

Participation awards are available for anyone who works a WRTC-2014 team during the competition, which is held in conjunction with the IARU HF Championship. These include QSL cards, awards for working all 59 teams, and awards for working teams on the most band-modes. Contacts with the WRTC2014 teams will count 5 points in the ARRL Centennial QSO Party.

Fifty-nine teams of top Amateur Radio contest operators from 38 countries will travel to the New England area July 8-14 to compete in WRTC-2014. Participation is based on qualifying scores posted in major contests between 2010 and 2014. A group of referees and judges, themselves well-known contest operators, will oversee the competition and confirm the results. — Thanks to WRTC-2014