This episode of HamTalk Live is brought to you
by Tower Electronics. For connectors, cables,
and more, call 920 -435 -2973 or visit PL -259
.com. And by ICOM, heard it, worked it, logged
it. Visit www .icomamerica .com slash amateur
for more information about ICOM radios. With
Neographer, here we go Welcome to Amtok Live
Call in, let's talk, Neil's your guy Amtok Live,
here we go Well, we're sort of live. Episode
number 317 WRTC 2023, recorded on April 20th,
2023. I'm your host, Neil Rapp, WB9VPG. Thanks
for tuning in to this episode of HamTalk Live.
Today we're joined by Fabio Scattino. And we'll
be talking about the World Radio Sport Team Championship
coming up in Italy. Last episode, Michael Coulter,
W8CI, was here to talk about the Dayton Hamvention.
If you missed that show, you can listen anytime
ham talk live .com or on your favorite podcast
app or on YouTube. And speaking of hamvention,
let me remind you that the national voice of
America museum of broadcasting will have their
usual extended hours. Once again, during hamvention,
Thursday and Friday, it'll be one to nine PM
and on Saturday from noon until nine. and then
on Sunday from 12 noon to 5 and if you need a
list to remind you of those go to wc8voa .org
slash hamvention and they'll have all the information
there. Of course the Drake exhibit will be open.
The WLWO transmitter that's been restored and
all the other exhibits will be open as well as
the ham shack so you can make a few queues while
you're there and the admission is just ten dollars
at the door of course ham talk live will have
our live broadcast on ham vincian eve as always
live from datin with weather traffic in the latest
news and we hope to talk to the the new Green
County Sheriff about some traffic. He's been
helping the Hamvention staff tremendously to
keep the traffic flowing. So hopefully we'll
have a chance to talk with him, but we'll have
all the information for you to get your Hamvention
trip finished up on Thursday evening before Hamvention.
All right. Well, today we're talking with Fabio,
so I'll be back with him right after this word.
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is for the beach we're cranking 1 .5 trillion
nanowatts right here on ham talk live Welcome
back to HamTalk Live. Tonight, Fabio Schettino,
I4UFH, joins us on the Orlando Amateur Radio
Club and hamcation Zoom line. Fabio is the vice
president of WRTC. That's the World Radio Sport
Team Championship. Uh, this year, 2023, it is
in Bologna, Italy. So Fabio joins us, uh, from
Bologna today. So thank you for being on the
show, Fabio. Well, thanks. Hey, nice to meet,
nice to meet you. Uh, surely we had time, uh,
we're following together to meet this evening,
but really we have a very pleasure to be here
with you in your own local life. Well, WRTC has
been postponed and postponed and postponed due
to COVID -19. And so it's been a while since
we've had one of these. So if you could just
kind of fill everybody in if they haven't heard
of WRTC or it's like I said, it's been a while
since we've had one because it's supposed to
be every four years, but Fill everybody in on
what WRTC is. Fine. Well, WRTC is almost an event
that started in 1990 from Seattle in West coast,
inside of Goodwill games. And after a while,
a lot of U .S. guys, mainly U .S. guys from the
West Coast, starting to thinking that should
be interesting to have a competition between
the best of the best radio contesting guys around
the world. So in 1996, there was the first WRTC
with new rules where a lot of countries were
invited to compete together on the same play
field. And year by year, even four years by four
years, it started to become a real Olympic games.
It's four years. And I was active in almost five
WRTC. So I am following this adventure for almost
25 years. And as competitor or as referee. And
in 2018, we had the opportunity to promote Italy
as the next WRTC state, a country that hosted
this event. Unfortunately, the last two years,
three years at least, with the COVID, we had
a lot of issues to organize. sponsoring, even
this is, as you know, a voluntary event, so we
have a lot of trouble to find what we need to
organize this event. We have postponed it for
one year, but we are ready. And this July we
will be hosting almost 66 teams that are coming
from all 45 countries all around the world with
66 referees that will be hosting all our network
stations that we have all around the Pianura
Padana area. It's a very flat area in the north
and center part of Italy near the city of Bologna.
And Bologna is the city where was born Guillermo
Marconi, the father of a radio. So more or less,
you need to come in Italy just for visit the
WRTC at quarter and the museum of the Marconi,
Guillermo Marconi, the father of a radio. Well,
WRTC is almost a big competition, a competition
where is activated during the ARU contest in
July. The second weekend of July is a 24 -hour
competition. We have a 66 station all spread
out up about 80, 85 kilometers. And all these
stations have the same equipment, same kind of
antennas, same kind of tower, cable length, same
rotator. The competition will be a multi -tool,
so two operators will be active simultaneously
on two bands simultaneously, so they need to
bring with them radios, filters, equipment. It's
a 100 watt event, so no amplifiers. And it's
like a big race on the same circuit, no? The
24 -hours Le Mans, no? Same car, same circuit,
the winner is who make more QSOs and more multipliers.
This is a simple rules as any contest, but as
you know, each contest is his station, is a different
location, different continent, different... rules
that are applied, so maybe good operators sometime
have advantages of good location. In that play,
in that case, there is no advantages from the
location, no advantages from the power, from
the antennas. Everything is equal. We have a
very larger flat area of about 100 km by 30 km,
so we have no issues about that. And is near
the Adriatic Sea, from Bologna City and the Adriatic
Sea on the right side of Italy. And surely we
expect to have a very good, great competition.
We have almost all the, all five bands open almost
24 years. That's right. 24 hours. Because 10
meter is really open. even in the night, so really
we have a very great opportunity to broker the
6 ,000, 6 ,000 and a half QSOs in 24 hours in
Amalt 2. And we really expect to have this, such
kind of effort. For organizing this event, we
have involved a lot of volunteers. They are coming
almost from, most from Italy, but we have also
A lot of volunteers from Germany, from Slovenia,
from France that are interested to join us. As
you can understand, this is quite a unique event
that should happen almost four, each four years.
Don't really know when we'll be next time, but
probably I hope that we'll be in Asia because
it is one of the continent that was never been.
But nevertheless, we have a lot of volunteers
that will be installed, all the antennas, all
the towers up one week before the event. And
we are all organized at everything into an headquarter
area that is located in the small town that the
name is Castel San Pietro, Terme. that you can
see is 30 kilometers from Bologna. We have a
lot of facilities. We have about 250 double bedroom
available for all the guests, even was referees
or competitors, or even all the only visitors
that want to join us, our event. So this is one
of the most interesting events that should happen
for contesting. We are contesting guys from almost
all the parts of the world, starting from Africa,
South America, North America. We have about 10
teams from North America. 12 teams, we include
Canada too. And we have three teams from Oceania,
from BK, ZL, Kilo, Hotel 6. South American is
represented from the Charlie Echo guys. And Africa
is represented for the first time from three
different teams, North Center and South Africa.
We have applied different rules, selection rules,
different from the early WLTC. Because surely
you can understand that it's not fair to compare
results from Northern Africa to Southern Africa.
There is almost 3000 kilometers between them.
So we have split Africa in three different areas
and we have three different team leader. Northern
Africa, Central Africa and Southern Africa. Even
the same with South America. We have Northern
part of South America that includes the all the
Papa 40 PJs area that are South America and Central
America. Central South America include the Papa
Yankee guys, the PY guys, and the Southern part,
including Charlie Echo, Lima Uniform, Charlie
X -ray, and so on. We have tried to have a more
fair way to split the selection area. And to
do that, we have analyzed up to 18 millions of
QSOs in the last five years of results, including
ARL, CQWW and WPX score, collecting them into
a database and extracting where we call the density
area. How many, how much radio are there in the
final area? Well, this was the area of selection,
the selection area. You really don't believe
that almost we have 8 % of locks of QSO that
during this 18 million of QSO that coming from
Japan, but really very few lock from Japan. The
selection criteria in this way, they've added
two more competitors from Japan instead of one
of the previous that we are seeing. Different
logic, different way to have a more fair competition
around the world. I'm really intrigued by having
You know, the same antennas in the same general
area, the same kind of train, you know, trying
to make everything equal for these competitors.
And it really gets, you know, intriguing because
it comes down to, you know, just being a great
operator and see those. you know, kinds of things
and little things mean a lot when it comes to
the competition and so I applaud your efforts
in trying to make this as fair as possible because
it's not an easy Easy thing to do and you know
you already mentioned I think you said 250 room
for 250 people and 66 teams that's a lot of antennas
a lot of Tents a lot of stuff for a volunteer
team to put all together and so so how are those
preparations coming along for that? Well, we
have step -by -step prepared everything in the
last couple of years. We have received a huge
amount of help from Limazul LZ antennas that
offered to us all the 67, 68 antennas free of
charge. We didn't pay the antennas, so we have
a very huge support from Li -Masulu antenna that
even the support of K1 Li -Masulu do and this
is what the first start of that we have collected
all the stuff we have manufactured the towers
we have a small company in Sicily in IT9 area
that have manufactured all the telescopic towers
and so we have step by step collected all the
stuff that we needed. Now we are storing everything
in a very large places where we have almost all
the stuff ready to be installed. At least we
need to move them in June. We expect to have
some trucks that go around the area to put up
on this area all the towers and all the for the
antennas. And we have up about 14 group of volunteers
that will be installed this antenna one week
before the contest. So we expect from the end
of June to the 6th of July that all this antenna
will be up and ready to go. We are planning to
have a lot of training to these teams. We have
about 14 teams that will be ready to install
the old antennas. We have made a couple of training
during the last couple of months. and we're expecting
that everyone don't have any doubts how to install
this system. Altogether, we have a new way, we
have just the WOTC is like a platform to make
some experiments, no? Like, we are harmiter radio,
so we love to do some new technical experiment.
And in this WRTC, we have had a way to collect
all the QSOs from all the 65 stations through
65 separate VPN, virtual private network. All
these QSOs will be collected from a big data
server. for what is the scope of that? Well,
we want to generate in real time a ranking, an
award ranking of who is working the WRTC station.
So we can see in real time who will be the winner
of the station that will work. all the WRTC may
be in SSB, may be in CW, may be on 10, or may
be in all band and so on. Because any station
can work, can be worked at up to about 10 times,
5 in SSB, 5 in CW. And then we have several award
that will be held for this event. And this way
to collect all the cues of Aloha's to have a
real -time ranking of all the commuterators that
work at the WRTC station. So it could be very
interesting to see this kind of racing in real
time, that's available worldwide. And this is
even an experimental way, but we love to do something
more new each WRTC. And I expect to be Confirming
the next one. It's a little bit complicated technology.
You need to have some good IT guys, but even
we try to do that. It's a, we try to do our best
to allow everyone to be not as the, what I mean,
the old timers know that I will see the results
after one month, after one week and so on. Real
time, you know, if you are the first that winning
your country or you're winning your continent
and so on. I work a lot with youth Fabio and
then this is one of the things that they have
said over and over again that they would want
for contesting is this live scoring so they can
see where they are. uh... compared to everyone
else and it it's just made a a huge difference
uh... and so i'd again applaud your your idea
here of trying to make this a live competition
uh... where you can uh... kind of cheer everybody
on and uh... the competitors can see where they're
at uh... you know in real time and their families
and friends It just makes it much more interesting,
I think. develop the new programs, not only push
a button and make a QSO or maybe some digital
QSO that really we don't agree at least. The
content, the WRTC is SSB and CW mode only. It's
a human mode, what I call human mode, not digital
mode. And what we want to have, right? the best
operators in both mode, CW and SSB, because both
of the operators has been selected and ranked
in the last 24 contests, in the last 2019 -2020
contests, scoring contests, and both of them,
both the operator has been selected between SSB
and CW content so we need to have the best operator
that can perform well in both modes. Lots of
preparation, lots of time and effort and money
to do this but a fabulous event and look forward
to hearing more about that. We're going to take
a break. And when we come back, we're going to
talk about some of the ceremonies, the parties
that go on, the opening and closing ceremonies.
I want to talk a little bit about some of the
youth teams and some of that that's going on.
So we'll talk about all of that with Fabio I4UFH
right after this word from Tower Electronics
right here on HamTalk Live. Jerry, what's up,
man? I haven't seen you at Sunbucks in a while.
I used to see you every morning getting coffee.
What's up? Well, I can't afford Sunbucks five
days a week anymore. I had to spend my money
on PL -259s. You know, those antenna projects
I've been meaning to do. I had to do them before
my HOA finds out I have antennas. That's too
bad, Jerry. I miss seeing you and catching up
over coffee. You should get your PL -259s from
Tower Electronics. They have great stuff. Jerry,
you're back. Oh, QRM Heterodyne Frappuccino.
That's a good choice. How's it going? Did you
get all those antennas up before the HOA police
showed up? Yeah, I got them all done. Thanks
for telling me about Tower Electronics. Now I
can have my coffee. I just saved a bunch of money
on my PL -259s by switching to Tower Electronics.
Don't get caught without PL -259s. Visit Tower
Electronics online at pl -259 .com or at a HamFest
near you or give them a call at 920 -435 -2973
and be sure to pick up some power poles, adapters
and cables too. Coming up on the Tower Electronics
HamFest schedule. Cedarburg, Wisconsin, May 6th,
Sandwich, Illinois, May 7th, Dayton, Hamvention,
May 19th through the 21st, and you can visit
them anytime at PL -259 .com. And welcome back
to Ham Talk Live. Be sure to check us out on
Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. And we're going
to get back to Fabio here in just a moment. But
just want to remind you again about Dayton Hamvention.
We've got a live show coming up the night before
on Thursday. So make sure you tune in for that
for all the latest news. And of course, we mentioned
earlier, the Voice of America Museum will be
open extended hours there. There's a bunch of
us that will be there as well. So make sure you
check that out. And we're back with Fabio Schettino,
I4UFH. He is the vice president of WRTC 2023.
which will be held just outside Bologna, Italy
and Fabio, I know that there's a whole procession
that happens before and after all the celebration
of all the competitors. So tell us a little bit
about the opening ceremonies and the closing
ceremonies at this year's WRTC. First step is
I want to talk about what will be happening for
the next generation of our radio. We'll have
a special group of young boys, young operator,
six teams, all the old members less than 25 years
old that will be operating for the first time
all together and they will compete with the big
guns. And so this is what we expect that HWRTC
need to have because we need to have Helmer,
the next one, the next guys that will be our
future of Helmer Radio Hobby. Even we have some
special agreement with YOTA Group. And probably
we'll be hosting five or six members of the European
YOTA members less than 20 years old that will
be joining with us to be active all the way during
this event. And what will be happening during
the open ceremony? So before the contest and
after the contest? Well... We will receive everyone.
Everyone will join us on the 4th of July and
almost all around the world will be probably
joining all together on the 4th of July. For
American guys it's a holiday day. And on the
5th of July we have an open ceremony. We expect
to have this ceremony. streaming on our channels
or Facebook or streaming that so everyone can
join us. And this is one more step that we want
to add to the WRTC 2022. Belfast Ceremony means
that all the teams will be presented to the public.
We have a mayor of the city that will host us.
Will we have Ministry of Telecommunication that
will help us to supply for a special, unique
call sign? And obviously the call sign will be
notified to the competitors only Saturday morning.
So no one knows about that. Even that will be
a special one. Never issued before. So this is
very difficult to obtain in any country, it's
probable. And so we have a very great support
from the Ministry of Telecommunication that helped
us to have this opportunity. Any teams will be
presented to the community, any referees will
be presented to the community, so all the up
about 66, 198 people will be ready to compete.
In the next two days, there will be a couple
of meetings with competitors and referees just
to question and answering, just to understand
if there is something that is not clear in the
rules. Friday there will be the withdrawal of
a team referee and the place where they will
be active. There are 66 places available so they
will be withdrawn randomly. It could be interesting
and thrilling to see who will be the team and
who will be his referee. Everything will go smoothly.
We hope smoothly until Sunday evening. Sunday
evening, we have a very high event that is organized
from the mayor of the cities. We have a big event
with the citizens. Just to join amateur radio
all around the world with the citizens of small
cities, small towns. just to know who are the
amateur radio, why we are there. And this should
be an event that allows us to explain really
what is amateur radio to all the people that
will be presenting this event. And Monday evening
there will be a closing ceremony. after a long
day of love checking should be our final ranking.
And we expect to have the Princess Electra, the
daughter of Guglielmo Marconi that is still alive,
that probably we need to be in a confirmation
from her. she will be pricing the withers. And
this should be the best one amateur radio can
commit, no? A doctor of recording. Absolutely.
Really. Absolutely. And we still need to expect
a confirmation from her. She's 96 years old.
We expect don't have any trouble. She lived between
London, Italy, and USA, depending if it's available
in Italy or not. It's not a matter of else. It's
not a matter that I don't know where it's living
in July, if it's available or not. We have a
last dinner with a very hot music, a lot of party
beer and Italian buffet that never to explain.
We hope that everyone knows that Italy is one
of the most interesting countries for food. And
surely we had another interesting activity during
this day that should be a visit to another interesting
area of Italy that is the Motor Valley. We are
not far from Lamborghini, Ferrari, Bugatti headquarters.
So we expect to have, if someone is interested,
to visit this museum that is up about one hour
from our headquarters. So there is surely some
interesting activities that everything will be
Closing ceremony where the winner for the next
four years will be the best team that had done
the best effort to look for multipliers and to
make more QSO than another one. Should be a very
tight competition. In 2018, the competition,
the first three places were enough about 100
,000 points over five million. So really brief
few points for separate the first two way up
to the second and the third. Really, we expect
to have a great competition to in 2022, 2023
at least. Well, Fabio, thank you so much for
telling us all about this. And if people want
to know more about this, I know you mentioned
that. There will be a team coming to the USA
for Dayton Hamvention, which I will be at and
we've been talking about a lot on this program.
So tell people how they can find you at Dayton
and then if they're not at Dayton, how they can
find you online. This will be the last year.
We had the three, for the last three years, we
was in Orlando too in February. And we expect
to meet everyone that is interested in this event,
just to support us. As you know, we are volunteers,
so we really appreciate the help of everyone.
This is a community event and we expect that
the community can help us at least visiting our
booth, nevertheless. And then if people want
to go online to find out more about the WRTC
and watch the scoreboard and watch the ceremonies,
how do they do that? You can do that on our website
www .wrtc2022 .it or over our Facebook page that
will surely be streaming the open and closing
ceremony. And of using a real time scoring will
be available for everyone all around the world
on our website. So really stay tuned in on our
channels. Then we'll be and switch on the radio
to work us. Very good. So W R T C two zero two
two dot I T since there was the delay for, for
COVID. So make sure you get the 2022 there when
you go look for that. Well, Fabio, any other
items you want to talk about here before we say
7 -3? No, not yet. No. We thank you again, Yul,
for this opportunity to share with your media,
with your channel, this event, even with your
availability. during this time, and surely we
expect everyone to work our competitors. We want
that this event will be remembered like the event
in the country of Guglielmo Marconi, one of the
best events even in the world. We try to do our
best, our volunteer, up to about 200 people that
every weekend are building antennas and testing
towers. manufacturing connectors. So we have
a lot of people that are working all the weekend
all over this project and just for them we want
that they are proud to be a member of this WITC
group just to have this event, one of the most
interesting events of the year. Thank you very
much to you. Thank you very much, Fabio. Appreciate
you taking the time to tell us all about WRTC
and I look forward to hearing everybody on the
air and look forward to seeing you at Hamvention
as well. Well, that is a wrap for this edition
of HamTalk Live. I'd like to thank my guest.
Fabio Escettino, I4UFH and everybody out there
in cyberspace for listening and for a list of
all of our upcoming guests, visit HamTalkLive
.com. So for now, this is Neil Rapp saying 7
-3, 7 -5 and may the good DX be yours. To you
and your family I'll be seeing you further down
the line It's hard to believe that you're N -2
-O -D Cause you sound just like a local up here
But why don't those whistling Mediterranean's
Check it when the frequency's clear?