WRTC2014, Inc., host of the 2014 World Radiosport Team Championship (WRTC) is pleased to announce three of the four Sponsored Teams that will compete at WRTC2014.The Sponsors are from the USA, Azores, Brazil/Bulgaria.
The WRTC2014 Steering Committee permits each WRTC organizer to offer the opportunity for sponsors to name teams outside the normal qualification process as a fund raising mechanism. For WRTC2014, the first 3 sponsorships were available on a first-come first-served basis. A fourth Sponsored Team will be made available by auction.
The "Latitude 13" team is so named because the locations where the two operators usually compete are both at 13 degrees latitude. The sponsor has named Tom Georgens, W2SC and Dave Mueller, N2NL, as the team. Tom is well-known in the radiosport community as the operator of station 8P1A/8P5A in Barbados. He was a competitor in WRTC2006 (PT5Q, 10th place) and WRTC2010 (R34P, 5th place). Dave often operates as NH2T in contests and currently holds the Oceania record in both modes of the CQWW DX Contest. Overall, he has held 9 USA or continental records in major contests. He won the silver medal at WRTC2006 as PW5C with partner N6MJ.
"RadioTeam Azores" is sponsored by Azores Tourism Association. They have appointed Martti Lane, OH2BH, and Ville Hiilesmaa, OH2MM, as their team. Martti's operating achievements are well-known. He has won the CQWW DX contest multiple times on both modes in both single-operator and multi-operator categories. Equally important are his efforts to conduct operations and demonstrations of amateur radio for governments seeking to develop amateur radio in their countries. He was the contest chairman of the first WRTC in 1990 and co-chair of WRTC2002 in Finland. Ville is a world-class operator, having held 11 World Records in the CQWW DX Contest in the single-operator-all-band, single-band, and multi-operator categories from a variety of stations on both phone and CW.
Currently residing in Brazil, he served on the organizing committee for WRTC2006, and was a referee at WRTC1990 and a judge at WRTC2002.
The "Brazil-Bulgaria Friendship Team" is sponsored by a consortium including The Araucaria DX Group, Triumph IESA Infrastructure AS, the Sao Paulo section of LABRE, K1LZ, and the Bulgarian Federation of Radio Amateurs (BFRA). They have appointed Soni Leite, PY1NX, and Atasnas "Nasko" Koitchev, LZ3YY/LZ9R, as their team. Soni is an experienced and successful operator with numerous high scores in the single-op all band, single band, Multi-single and Multi-two categories, with several world-high scores from ZY7C, PW7T, PS2T, and ZW5B. In the 2012 CQWW Contest, he scored World-High and set World Records on both modes in the 10M Single-band Low Power category. Nasko has been contesting since 1986 when he was 13 years old. He has a total of 12 World-high finishes in a wide variety of contests in single-op and multi-op categories, including the 2013 IARU HF Championship in the Low Power CW category.
The fourth and final Team Sponsorship will be made available through an auction to be conducted March 8, 2014. Anyone interested in participating in the auction should contact WRTC Chairman, Doug Grant, K1DG,
(k1dg@wrtc2014.org) as quickly as possible to register.
About WRTC2014
The World Radiosport Team Championship (WRTC) is held every four years and consists of 50+ two-person teams of amateur radio operators from around the world competing in a test of operating skill. Unlike most on-the-air competitions, all stations are required to use identical antennas from the same geographic region, eliminating all variables except operating ability.
Previous WRTCs have been held in Seattle (1990), San Francisco (1996), Slovenia (2000), Finland (2002), Brazil (2006), and Russia (2010).
