In news around Amateur Radio this week the WRTC 2018 Organizing Committee, host of the 2018 World Radiosport Team Championship (WRTC) in Germany is pleased to announce that the application process for individuals that would like to participate in WRTC 2018 as a Team Leader is now open. Team Leader applications must be submitted no later than August 15, 2017. WRTC is a competition among two-operator teams. A total of 63 Team Leaders will be selected from the top qualifiers in 29 regions from around the world. Each Team Leader then selects their team mate for the competition. To find out more, visit their website. The link is on vk6.net. [http://wrtc2018.de/index.php/en/competition/qualification/team-leader-application]

The CQ Contesting mailing list is full of discussion on how to handle broken calls when the logs of two stations don't reflect the same contact. This often happens when one station mis-hears a callsign, or uses some assistance like a cluster, to copy the call. Discussions centred around the notion that both stations need to have the correct callsign in their logs for either of them to get the point. This is something that's already in force in Russian contests, but that's not universally true. If you'd like to see what's being said or contribute your thoughts, check out the mailing list. The link is on vk6.net. [http://lists.contesting.com/pipermail/cq-contest/2017-June/118096.html]

IARU HF is coming up and there are ways to practice. The Contest Super Simulator is a simulation package designed by Wayne, W5XD and distributed by WriteLog Contesting Software. It extends WriteLog such that the two together become a virtual contest in progress. A new version - 1.10 - has a more realistic simulation of SO2R when one of the radios on CW and the other on SSB. If you'd like to find out more, check the links on vk6.net. [http://writelog.com/contest-super-simulator] [http://writelog.com/demo]

Staying with the IARU HF Championship 2017, version 1 of the multiplier list has been published by Joe OZ0J. You can find it online, click the link on vk6.net.[https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2651703/IARU%202017%20HQ%20Stations.pdf]

In SOTA and WWFF news this week, Brett VK2BNN reports that two scouts from his troop, Rory and Monique, who were scheduled to do their Foundation Course last week managed to activate Mt Banks instead when their course was unexpectedly cancelled. Their first time calling CQ got the two firmly interested in radio, managing 17 contacts overall, including one summit to summit, one park to park and two contacts with New Zealand.

David VK3IL has let us know that the planned trip with Glenn VK3YY, Andrew VK3JBL to the Southern Alps this weekend has been cancelled because the weather forecast has deteriorated over the last few days and they've decided that  SOTA is meant to be about fun rather than survival . Ed DD5LP then went on to report that he was planning an activation this week but for the opposite weather reason (35°C+) has postponed for a couple of weeks.

Andrew VK1DA lets us know that his first contact using his shiny new MTR3B Mountain Topper Radio was a success. He hooked up  to his home station antenna (not unlike his portable antenna), with a freshly charged battery, headphones and a spare paddle. He tuned around a bit and heard only some weak signals. After resetting the frequency to 7030, boom, there was Ian VK5CZ calling cq. Andrew answered his QRZ, after working VK3PF, and he responded with a 579 report. Andrew had to space out his letters because the default sending speed on the MTR is 20 WPM and he did not know how to reduce the speed to 16 WPM which was Ian's sending speed...  afterwards he read the manual (again). Andrew concludes with the observation that "It’s only fitting that my first contact with this little rig should be a SOTA station. Quite pleased with it..."

Gerard VK2IO reports that his Port Macquarie trip was a great success. Over the 12 days (8-19 June), activations were done at 13 summits and 14 parks. 775 contacts were made including 14 summit-to-summit and 31 park-to-park. 4 new summits were activated and 5 new parks. 6 new SOTA completes were notched up. Weather was rather mixed and off-road tracks tended to be muddy. Some of the SOTA activations were curtailed due to wet weather and there were some issues with the radio due to high humidity. There was also one park (Boonanghi SCA VKFF-1285) and one summit (Talawahl VK2/MN-186) that could not be accessed. The Oxley Region Amateur Radio Club field day on the long weekend is an annual pilgrimage and the original purpose of Gerard’s trip to Port Macquarie. This year was a very successful one as Gerard was named Foxhunt Champion. Quite a surprise!

The WWFF Australia mailing list was full of suggestions on how to access Benambra N/P VKFF-0029, which evolved into a discussion about how how each individual block of land needs to be accessible from a public road. Thanks to Liz VK2XSE we also learned that there are several avenues to gain access to national parks. In this case, Liz found access routes in the Plan of Management. If you'd like to see how she went about getting this information check out the WWFF Australia mailing list. The link is on the vk6.net website. [https://au.groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/wwffaustralia/conversations/topics/3517]