Q5 Worldwide Ham Radio

There’s a side of the World Radiosport Team Championship (WRTC) that has nothing to do with radios, antennas, multipliers, or scores—and Bill Vinci believes it can make ham radio stronger. Bill Vinci is the husband of noted contester and WRTC judge Rusty Epps W6OAT, and for years Bill has watched serious operators disappear into the intensity of contests while their spouses and significant others are left on the sidelines. Instead of getting licensed himself, Bill found another way to contribute. The idea began at WRTC Finland. With little for non-operating partners to do during the competition, Bill organized a night out. The next day, an operator handed him $100 and asked him to take his wife out again. Eventually, Bill was taking roughly 60 people by charter bus to Estonia—and the idea that became the Ham Widows Ball was born. At WRTC Wyboston, that idea had matured into something much bigger: an early-week event designed to help spouses and partners make their own connections before the operators disappear into competition. In fact, so many operators signed up that Bill and the organizers had to enforce one of the event’s defining rules: generally, if you had a callsign, you weren’t invited. A few ham radio operators even had to be escorted back out. Bill and Kevin also get into the larger lesson for Dayton, Visalia, WRTC, and other ham gatherings. If amateur radio wants healthy events and committed operators, perhaps organizers need to think beyond the people behind the radios. Give families and partners a reason to enjoy the experience too, and everybody wins. Join the conversation and subscribe to Q5 Worldwide Ham Radio.

The Oceania DX Contest gives operators worldwide a reason to turn their antennas toward a part of the world that can be surprisingly easy to overlook. Grant VK5GR and Holger ZL3IO are experienced contesters and members of the community behind the Oceania DX Contest, an event whose history reaches back to 1935. They explain how the contest works, why roughly half of submitted logs come from outside Oceania, and why organizers would like to see significantly more North American participation. For DXers, the propagation discussion is particularly useful. Grant and Holger explain why long path can be bread-and-butter operating from Oceania, including 20-meter opportunities that North American and European operators may miss simply because they're pointing their antennas in the expected direction. Holger also puts the immense geography of Oceania into perspective: from his New Zealand station, reaching either edge of the region can mean paths approaching 10,000 kilometers. We also look at the overlap between the SSB weekend and the California QSO Party. Contacts with Oceania can count in both events when properly logged, creating an additional opportunity for California and other North American operators to find activity across the Pacific. The 2026 phone contest runs October 3 at 0600 UTC through October 4 at 0600 UTC, followed by CW October 10 at 0600 UTC through October 11 at 0600 UTC. And these aren't casual perspectives on contesting. Holger describes logging roughly half a million contacts from New Zealand and the development of the ZM4T station; Grant operates 20–30 contests a year and has helped assemble a portable multi-multi effort. Join the conversation and subscribe to Q5 Worldwide Ham Radio.

WRTC 2026 ended with one podium. Weeks later, an investigation produced another. The World Radiosport Team Championship (WRTC) brings together many of the world’s top contest operators to compete from comparable stations under a common set of rules. I'm joined by Randy Thompson K5ZD, Chris Hurlbut KL9A, Dan Craig N6MJ, and Bill Fehring W9KKN to examine the investigation that led to four WRTC teams being disqualified and the final results being rescored. Almost immediately after the competition, operators studying the public logs began noticing multiplier totals that didn’t look right. What followed went far beyond ordinary log checking. The investigation examined suspicious “pirate” multipliers, reverse logs, team recordings, independent SDR recordings, operating patterns, and evidence surrounding how particular teams may have been identified on the air. In one case discussed here, logged QSOs appeared in the record even though investigators could not hear the corresponding stations in the recordings. The revised results put Manfred Wolf DJ5MW and Uli Ann DM5EE in first, Dan Craig N6MJ and Chris Hurlbut KL9A in second, and Randy Thompson K5ZD and Tom Georgens W2SC in third. But this conversation goes well beyond who ended up with the medals. The group looks at the roughly 12-hour window judges originally had to certify results, why some manipulation is so difficult to detect in real time, and whether WRTC can continue announcing winners immediately after the contest. There’s also a larger question here for serious contesters: what happens next? Randy, Chris, Dan, and Bill discuss qualifying, enforcement, the future eligibility of disqualified competitors, the role of peer accountability, and why they believe this episode can ultimately strengthen rather than diminish WRTC and competitive amateur radio. Join the conversation and subscribe to Q5 Worldwide Ham Radio.

The Beta Version of the Next.POTA.app is live, bringing new tools for operators and a faster development model for what comes next. Thom Martin W8TAM is a member of the Parks on the Air board and part of the technology team working on the "Next" POTA system. He joins me as Next.POTA.app becomes available to operators to test drive, connected to POTA’s production database and ready for real-world use alongside the existing site. There are meaningful changes for operators: 27 languages and localizations, improved phone and tablet support, more sorting and filtering options, customizable spot information, faster modern software, and sticky comments that let activators put important information directly on an active spot. But there’s another important change behind the screen. POTA’s experienced developers have embraced Claude Code as a development tool, using AI to increase the speed and efficiency of their work while keeping experienced developers in control of the process. Thom says the team has been able to make significant changes in a remarkably short window—from the end of May through mid-August. We’ve discussed this approach with Thom previously on Q5, and this release gives us a chance to see what that development model is producing. That increased development velocity matters because POTA itself continues to grow. The program has grown to more than 90,000 users, with Thom expecting it could reach 100,000 before the end of the year. We discuss what that growth means for database and QSO storage, technology costs currently running roughly $3,700–$4,000 per month, and the increasing demands placed on POTA’s help desk, mapping representatives, technology team, and volunteer network. We also touch on the ongoing discussion around park eligibility and how POTA is working on mapping team expansion and a more scalable volunteer structure. And the Beta version of Next.POTA.app has already been tested well beyond the development desk: Thom recently used it during a huge park rove through Missouri and Iowa, finding problems in the field that the team was able to address. The new system is available now. More importantly, POTA now has a faster path for continuing to improve it. Join the conversation and subscribe to Q5 Worldwide Ham Radio. Thanks to DX Engineering for supporting Q5 Worldwide Ham Radio and the operators who continue to build, experiment, compete, chase DX, and take amateur radio into the field. Their support helps us bring the people and technology shaping modern amateur radio directly to the Q5 audience.

Dan Craig N6MJ is one of world's top contesters—and now the new contest manager for the North American QSO Party SSB contest. It’s a fitting assignment: NAQP was the first major contest Dan ever won, back in 1997 when he was just 16 years old, operating from his dad’s house and discovering that maybe you didn’t need the biggest station to compete with the best. Dan explains what goes on behind the scenes of running NAQP and why its simplicity matters. The exchange is just a name and state, single operators get 10 hours out of the 12-hour contest window, and the format gives newcomers a remarkably accessible way into serious contesting. For operators chasing a score, Dan gets specific: check 10 meters immediately, don’t neglect the difficult summer bands, and make enough time for 80 and 160 to hunt multipliers that can separate a good score from a winning one. But Dan’s most interesting strategy has nothing to do with winning this year. He'll deliberately stays on bands later than conventional wisdom dictates so he can find casual operators and newcomers. Sometimes, when he hears an especially enthusiastic new call, he’ll even email afterward with encouragement. Now he wants to build a stronger bridge between NAQP and Parks on the Air—and says the contest team has even discussed the possibility of a future POTA category. Join the conversation and subscribe to Q5 Worldwide Ham Radio. Thanks to DX Engineering for supporting Q5 and the operators who keep amateur radio moving forward. From POTA activators discovering contesting to DXers and competitors chasing the next multiplier, DX Engineering continues to invest in the people who get on the air.