• [WRTC ENDS] –

We have the provisional winners ! The top 3 teams were very close at the end – it was certainly hotly contested. Watching the leader-board with 5 minutes remaining was compulsive viewing! Congrats to all for taking part. 

(right click to open image)

Note: Yuri, VE3DZ was also the WRTC 2022 1st place winner!

Meanwhile, here’s a table of all the participants and their callsigns made by ChatGPT for DX-World readers.

  • [JULY 11 @ 1200Z] – 

WRTC 2026 has now kicked off for real. Keep a close eye on the Live Leaderboard here or play live You Tube video below. Positions will change regularly throughout the entire 24 hour event. GL to all !

  • [TEAMS] –

Meet the WRTC 2026 teams and referees. All pictures courtesy of Lukas, LY7J. 

Earlier today the teams were driven to their respective locations where they would then begin assembling stations (example below credit DM9EE). The weather is very hot in East Anglia, England so building up could be exhausting! Good luck to all participants!

  • [CALLSIGNS] –

Here’s the WRTC contest callsigns to chase this weekend. You may need to update your logging software databases if you’re working these stations during the contest.

  • [JULY 1] by The WRTC 2026 Team.

WRTC is essentially the Olympics of Amateur Radio Contesting – and is almost upon us!

On 8th July 2026, competitors that have qualified to represent their Qualification Area (unlike the Olympics, which has participants competing for their country) will arrive in the United Kingdom to prepare for this once every 4 year event. The host nation changes each time and, this time, for the 10th WRTC, it’s coming to the UK! There will be 50 teams of two, each with an assigned referee. Each will be allocated an HF operating site in South East England, where they will take part in a 24 hour SSB/CW contest (the IARU HF Championship) over the weekend of 11th/12th July. So, WRTC is kind of a contest within an existing contest.

This is your opportunity to work these special stations and apply for your award!

The WRTC contest will be live on a dedicated online platform provided by World Radio League. This is a live scoreboard where you can track your favourite team in real time. Also, when you contact one of the special WRTC stations, you can see it on the WRL platform. What’s more, you can check which of the 50 WRTC stations you still need to contact. Can you work all 50 of them? If you’re an SSB operator, there are 250 possible QSOs across 80, 40, 20, 15 and 10m. Similarly, there are 250 possible QSOs if you are a CW operator. If you are both an SSB and CW operator, 500 QSOs are possible with WRTC stations alone!

Certificates will be downloadable after the contest, which will display your total number of QSOs made with these special callsigns. There are different award tiers depending on how many you contact. Check out the following webpage for full details of the award programme.

So, what are the special callsigns? Well, we can’t say just yet! These will be announced on Thursday 9th July. You will find this on the WRTC website – and also on our social media platforms by searching WRTC2026. You can be sure that these 50 callsigns will be all over the bands during this contest! See how many you can find!

A look at the World Radio League platform is a must. Sign up early for free to stay tuned when the scoreboard page for WRTC goes live!

So, if you have the capability to be on the HF bands over the weekend of 11/12th July, why not try to work as many of these special stations as you can! From the UK, many of the WRTC sites should be easy to work on 80m and 40m, with additional opportunities on 20m, 15m and 10m depending on conditions and ground wave range. The exchange is signal report and ITU zone (so, if calling from the UK, “59, 27” on SSB and “599, 27” on CW would work).

We also want to promote the YouTube daily TV shows at 16.30z (17.30 BST) daily from 8th July, plus the contest livestream. This is the link to follow. Ask to subscribe to the channel.