EDN Network
by Doug Grant
I had the privilege of organizing the Seventh World Radiosport Team Championship event last month (see this page for more info, or listen to the coverage on WBUR’s “Only a Game” NPR program). Many call this competition the “Olympics of Ham Radio.”
This event involved inviting the world’s best operators to the same geographic area (in this case, the Boston area), and setting them up with identical stations to create a level playing field. In other radiosport competitions, the contestants usually try to operate from locations with advantageous HF propagation in rare countries, with favorable local terrain (hilltops instead of valleys) and use the biggest antenna systems they can install and maximum power. However, for this event we wanted to test operating skill and had to remove all the other variables.
Leveling the playing field was a big challenge…