WRTC 2018 organizers today officially announced the list of call signs to be used during the World Radiosport Team Championship 2018 (WRTC 2018) competition that gets under way at 1200 UTC on Saturday, July 14. The call signs to be used will be Y81A through Y89U.

Y##-prefix call signs, once used by radio amateurs in the former German Democratic Republic (East Germany) were inherited by the German government after the reunification of East and West Germany and have not been used since.

The call signs were announced during the WRTC 2018 opening ceremony today. Shortly before the competition starts on Saturday, each team leader will select a sealed envelope containing the team’s call sign. The envelope then is given to the team’s referee, and 15 minutes before the competition begins, the referee will hand the envelope to the team leader, and the team members will then quickly program CW and voice keyers.

All team members have been urged not to do anything that would connect a particular call sign with a specific team, and those operating in the concurrent IARU HF Championship are asked not to identify teams they might recognize, when spotting stations.

A live scoreboard will track the progress of WRTC 2018 teams. The  WRTC 2018 Live Scoreboard will reflect the personal call signs of the competitors.

On Thursday morning, WRTC 2018 participants and referees met for a briefing by organizers, during which competition organizers explained and clarified all rules and answered questions.

“Competitors and referees asked for a lot of detail,” a WRTC 2018 announcement said. “especially as regards correct log keeping and rating of QSOs, such as what to do when the [other station] sends the wrong zone. The guidelines given at the meeting are a building block for fair competition, which must indeed be reflected during contest operation and not only through subsequent regulatory discussions.”

A detailed briefing also was held specifically for site referees, during which the function of the power-checking meter was described and the configuration of the score-collection computer explained.