WRTC call sign mystery revealed A well kept secret of the WRTC-2018 to be held in Germany next weekend finally was revealed last night. Some minutes after midnight local time, the German regulatory authority BNETZA (similar to the OFCOM in the UK) published an official statement concerning the assignation of special callsigns to the participants of the competition. According to that statement, the call sign block Y2A to Y9Z can be used by the contesters. There will be a lottery which team gets what callsign before the contest starts. The Y2 block was formerly used by communist East Germany, the late "German Democratic Repbublic" which perished in 1990. For more than 28 years, these old call signs have never been issued again until now. The original statement can be seen here (in German Language): RADIO DARC, the voice of the German Amateur Radio Club, will broadcast a special DX magazine to North America on Saturday, 14th of July from 11:00 - 13:00 hrs UTC and will cover all background information concerning the WRTC. A rented 300 kW transmitter on 13860 kHz will be used. For Europe, the frequency is 6070 kHz with 300 kW also. 73´ Rainer DF2NU http://www.southgatearc.org/news/2018/july/wrtc-call-sign-mystery-revealed.htm
The Y2A-Y9Z block is held by Germany, but the WRTC call signs will start with the Y8 prefix, according to the BNetzA statement. The second paragraph of that statement, as translated by Google (emphasis is mine), says this: The statement continues, stating that Germany has the entire Y2A-Y9Z block of prefixes. 73!
The call signs have been unveiled. From a tweet by KO8SCA: None of the call signs include the number 5, nor the letters that are all dits (E, I, S, H). 73!
The objective is quite reasonable: make it so no station has a (shortened) callsign time advantage on CW, while also making it obvious that each is a WRTC station, on all modes. Have fun in Y land!
Wishing Dan and Chris, whom I have contested with at NK7U, a repeat of their Gold from the last WRTC.
From the Hams of the German ARC - only $17.50 per hour! A few years ago DARC bought up a bunch of liquidated SW transmitter stuff from the Deutsche-Welle and spun off their own commercial operation, just for fun. They must have pumped up the QRO since then (?) Here's the story, http://www.arrl.org/news/german-radio-amateurs-breathe-new-life-into-orphaned-shortwave-channel
I used to run one of three 250kw Continental Radio transmitters in Oak Ridge,TN. We used them in energy research in the 70's and 80's. Don't know if they are still there. Clayton K4QM
