This page lists blog and news items about WWROF activities.
On behalf of the entire WWROF leadership team, I want to personally thank each member of the Frankford Radio Club for their leadership and support to the contest community!
73, John, K1AR
Chairman, WWROF
The World Wide Radio Operators Foundation has been very busy behind the scenes over the past few months supporting a number of important projects on behalf of our fellow competitors. In summary, WWROF:
- Funded 2010 & 2011 certificate expenses for entire family of CQ contests ensuring that all recipients have now received their well-deserved awards.
- Provided partial funding of CQ certificate mailing costs.
- Implemented log checking services for IARU HF Championship HQ stations and set the stage for supporting a variety of contests in the future.
- Procured software defined radio (SDR) equipment to assist the CQWW Contest Committee with on-air recordings for log checking, providing ground-breaking adjudication services.
- Upgraded hardware on CQWW log checking systems.
- Developed and promoted a Contest Code of Ethics (CCOE). The CCOE was subsequently adopted by the CQWW committee and has obtained broad support within CQ’s entire family of contests including the CQ WW DX, CQ WPX, CQ RTTY, and CQ 160 and beyond (see www.cqww.com).
- Funded a centralized PO Box to facilitate timely collection of paper logs for CQ contests.
- Implemented broader international organizational support by electing S50A and VE3EJ as new WWROF Directors.
- Added further depth to leadership team with the appointment of K5ZD as our newest WWROF Director.
As we look forward to 2012 and beyond, WWROF has a strong desire to make an even larger contribution to contesting. The computing infrastructure needs of the contest community continue to grow. We also look forward to supporting further improvements to contest log checking such as the development of improved tools for log submissions and encouragement programs for newcomers. Our team will be making improvements to the WWROF Web site, with the goal being to make it a more useful resource for contesters everywhere.
As always, we welcome your input. Don’t hesitate to share what’s on your mind. As the winter contest season is winding down, now is the time to implement great WWROF projects for the fall and next year!
See you in the next contest!
73,
John Dorr, K1AR
Chairman, World Radio Operators Foundation
but my responsibility as President of WRTC2014, Inc. will be my primary focus for the next few years.
Looking back over the past year, I think we accomplished a lot of what we set out to do. The founders thought there was a need for an organization like this, focused on the operating skills of amateur radio using on-air competitions to test those skills. We pursued a few relatively small programs, and met the goals. We have expanded our international scope with the addition of two new Directors, and have been recognized by the IRS as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt non-profit organization.
In related news, the 2009 IARU Championship controversy regarding the HQ station competition created a problem for the 2010 competition. The ARRL chose not to score the HQ stations in the 2010 competition as a result of the conflicts in 2009. This created a problem for the organizers of the HQ stations…if nobody was going to score the logs, why bother with the operation?
None of the relevant IARU member societies could be used, since many had HQ operations of their own, and a conflict of interest might arise or at least be perceived.
It seemed to us at the WWROF that we could help, and we offered to cross-check the logs, since the IARU logs are submitted to servers operated by our Advisory Committee, and some of those members also provide the log-checking software. With the permission of the ARRL, we approached the IARU Region 1 Contest Manager, 9A5K, and offered our services as a completely neutral, third-party resource. The offer was accepted.
WWROF will do the log acceptance and receipt acknowledgment, then perform the cross-checking against the complete data base of received logs, error calculations, etc., and present the data to the IARU Region 1 Committee, which will then declare the winner.
We are pleased that the IARU Region 1 Committee chose to use our services. It is exactly the kind of thing that this organization can do that no other can.
Lots more projects in the works. Stay tuned.
This is the “Dayton of Europe”, and it was my first time there. It is held in a wonderful facility…the flea market is indoors in a few of the exhibition halls, the entire facility is air-conditioned and spotless. The town itself is beautiful, on the shore of Lake Constance (known in German as the Bodensee). You can see the Swiss Alps across the lake…very picturesque.
I had a chance to meet a lot of European (and other) contesters there, and talked a lot about the WWROF and its goals. We have not done much promotion of the organization there, and need to improve.
The first Friedrichshafen Contest University program was held during the convention, co-sponsored by the Deutscher Amateur Radio Club, the Bavarian Contest Club, and the Rhein-Ruhr DX Association. I was privileged to be one of the speakers. Over 100 people attended, and even though English is a second language for nearly all of the students, they seemed to understand my presentation, laughing at the right times, and asking good questions.
Curiously, no plaques are offered for this event. Plaques and certificates were awarded in the past, but that practice vanished at least ten years ago.
A few years ago, Ken Adams, K5KA, quietly began awarding medals to the top scorer in the CW Sprint. Some of the winners consider these medals their most-prized radio contest award.
In 2009, K5KA became a Silent Key. Larry “Tree” Tyree, N6TR, who does the log checking for the Sprint, approached the WWROF to see if there was interest in funding the medal program so that it can continue. The WWROF Board has approved this funding request, and the CW Sprint medal program will continue.
