2023-July: World Radiosport Team Championships -  Bologna, Italy (WRTC  2022)

I was very honoured to be selected as one of the 60 referees at the WRTC event held in Bologna, Italy in July 2023. The event was a year late due to Covid and was under threat just weeks beforehand due to severe flooding in the Bologna area. However the Italians managed to pull it off.

WRTC is the 'Olympics' of amateur radio contesting. It attracts many of the world's best HF contesters, selected per region based on results in a series of qualifying contests.  Each regional qualifier can choose one team mate, so teams are made up of two people representing each region. Following some withdrawals for political reasons, there were 58 participating teams in Italy.

The event itself is a 'contest within a contest' and is concurrent with the IARU HF Championship - a world-wide contest involving IARU national societies (RSGB and the like) and thousands of individual entrants. WRTC is designed to provide a level playing field for teams to compete, the only 'variable' being their operating skills. Sites are selected to be geographically and topologically similar - exactly the same antennas are deployed at each site. In Italy these were rotatable tri-band Yagis and separately fed dipoles for 40m and 80m on a telescopic mast.

The contest itself was scheduled for 8th and 9th July but the actual WRTC event started on Tuesday 4th July. Most participants and visitors arrived via Bologna Airport or the main rail station; the Italians knew when to expect us having previously collected travel plans. I arrived at the airport and was met by a welcome-team; I didn't have to wait too long before the bus was ready to depart with about half a dozen participants. Already I was meeting new friends.

The WRTC campus was spread over three hotels and a convention centre in Castel San Pietro Terme, south-east of Bologna and about 30 minutes’ drive from the airport. We were required to check in at the HQ hotel, receive our welcome pack and directions to our hotel, all of which were within a few minutes walk of each other. For a referee the welcome pack consisted of 'WRTC Magazine', local produce and tourist guides, three T-shirts and a polo shirt - the competitor, referee and Organising Committee 'official shirts' give a real feel of 'belonging' to the event.

The week was full on.  A number of excursions were available but for competitors and referees, ahead of the contest only Wednesday's trip to the Guglielmo Marconi house was viable. I'm so glad I did it - it was a great opportunity to mix with other participants but above all, it was a very emotional experience to stand where Marconi had conducted his first experiments. After that we had a huge lunch in a country restaurant, then visited the Museum of Communications and Multimedia. Later on Wednesday evening there was an official WRTC opening ceremony, attended buy the President of ARI (the Italian national society) and the local mayor.

Thursday heralded an early start and an 8am meeting between the organising committee, referees and competitors.  The first task was to assign referees to teams - this was done pseudo randomly, for example there was the need to avoid a UK referee partnering UK competitors.  Everyone was eager to know who they would partner and I was out of the 'hat' (a computer!) fairly early, paired with Team EU-7, Matija S53MM and Sandi S57K.  Discussions on several points followed, largely seeking clarification on rules and adjudication.  In the afternoon, the referees met alone to receive instructions and to discuss our roles and 'what if' scenarios.

On Friday morning it really felt like the contest was drawing close.  Competitors, referees and the organisers met again to firstly randomly allocate  'secret' contest call-signs, one to each team in a sealed envelope and then a further lottery to decide which  team would be operating from each site.  Callsigns were issued from the block I41A to I49Z and avoided certain suffices e.g. E , I , S , H, K to avoid confusion on CW. As a referee I had to safely keep my team's call-sign envelope - it wasn't to be issued until 15 minutes before the contest.  Unlike some previous WRTC events where stations were set up 'field day' style with tents and generators, the Italians had opted for rural B&B premises. The furthest sites were drawn first; my team's site was about an hour's drive from WRTC HQ near the town of Dogata.  As soon as my team were drawn out of the hat, we located our designated Site Manager, I collected my  'referee kit' and then we headed off to the site. As a referee I was issued with a local mobile phone and list of contact numbers - during the contest the competitors' phones were confiscated to avoid them notifying anyone of their contest call-sign.

On arrival at the contest site at around 1:30pm, my team decided they wanted to eat so we headed to a local restaurant then via the supermarket on the return journey. Knowing we'd be awake for the 24 hours of the contest, we stocked up with  'contest food' to keep us going  - bananas, water, nuts and of course 'contest cookies'.

We all slept well on Friday night and were ready for the contest start at 12 UTC, or 2pm local in Italy. 15 minutes before the contest I locked away the team's mobile phones and handed over the call-sign envelope. They were reasonably happy with I42D. 

Whilst at the B&B we were well looked after by the host, however there were other guests staying and there was a slight electrical noise problem on some bands. It seems my team were lucky, other teams suffered worse noise and in some cases very poor operating conditions.

The contest started and I listened in. The role of the referee is to ensure compliance to rules and to make sure no cheer-leading is going on i.e. the competitors attracting contacts from their home nation - teams must speak in English and are only allowed to identify themselves with their WRTC callsign. Fortunately, my team were well versed with the rules and happy to follow the spirit of the contest; that made my job very easy.

The station configuration is worthy of mention. My EU-7 team had a very typical setup of two radios, one for each operator and each with a laptop for logging and panadapter display. A third laptop was used for recording the contest plus I had my own laptop on the network to watch the log. There was an elaborate, automated switching and band-pass filtering system to allow the radios to operate simultaneously at 100 Watts on two bands. The tri-band Yagi was fed into a triplexer to allow two bands to be simultaneously used and each dipole had a separate feed.  An audio feed was provided to the referee and I provided my own switch so I could listen to either one or both of the stations. It worked very well. Each WRTC site had Internet connectivity, in our case via a 4G router. The competitors' logs were fed through a VPN network to HQ where a real-time scoreboard was managed.

At the end of the contest the team was allowed 30 minutes to make log amendments based on their notes during the contest. After that I took a copy of their log and the contest recording, the latter being for the adjudicating team to use if there are any issues. It's then a waiting game.

After dismantling their station we headed back to WRTC HQ where I handed over the USB stick and we parted company for some rest. Sunday evening was rather subdued and an early night beckoned.  Monday was quiet and a few of us strolled into town; in the evening there was an awards and closing ceremony during which the winners were announced and presentations made. There was also an amazing moment when Guglielmo Marconi's daughter Princess Elettra Marconi Giovanelli was called, she gave a goodwill message to the audience by phone.

On reflection the event was 'full on' but very enjoyable.  Spending a week with the world's most committed and talented contesters was inspiring and lots of fun; it was great to reconnect with old friends and make plenty of new ones along the way. Also, Italy was fantastic - pasta as a starter to every meal and great food to follow. Throw in the sunshine and fine local wine, I definitely needed to get home for a rest!

Web Links:

WRTC event held in Bologna, Italy in July 2023 : https://www.wrtc2022.it/

severe flooding in the Bologna area: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-65632655

WRTC is the 'Olympics' of amateur radio contesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Radiosport_Team_Championship

Guglielmo Marconi house: https://www.fgm.it/en/home.html

Museum of Communications and Multimedia: http://www.museopelagalli.com/index_UK_INIZIO.htm

Princess Elettra Marconi Giovanelli : https://www.aru.ac.uk/graduation-and-alumni/honorary-award-holders2/elettra-marconi-giovanelli