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After going through 76 entries from around the world, the organizers of the 2010 World Radiosport Team Championships announced on Sunday the 44 winners of team leader positions for what is essentially the World Cup of ham radio contesting.
For most of the world, the selections followed the points earned in three years of qualifying results, but in three regions, the final actions left unanswered questions about stations who were left out of the 2010 WRTC as a team leader and one who was included.
Maybe the biggest surprise was in the Europe #4 region, where an operator who had been disqualified was given a team leader's position.
Andy Kotovsky UU4JMG was awarded one of the five team leader slots, even though he was on the UU7J Multi-Single team which was disqualified in the 2008 CQ WW SSB Contest.
The 2010 WRTC rules clearly spell out that any operator who is disqualified is not eligible for the competition.
"TL/TM disqualified from any listed contests in period from July 2006 will lose the right to apply," state the rules.
Evidently that did not apply to UU4JMG, who knocked out UR0MC from a team leader's position.
"We received a letter from CQWW committee that UU4JMG was not a part of the UU7J team when they were DQed, so he is IN," WRTC organizer Harry Booklan RA3AUU told radio-sport,net.
That is not what appears on the UU7J log.
Another surprise came in the Europe #2 regional, where the Russian Committee left out the leader of that qualifying battle, Ivan Dobrocky OM3LA, as Manfred Wolf DJ5MW was given a spot.
But not long after the final list was issued, the WRTC committee changed course, and added Dobrocky back, knocking Wolf out.
"It was a confusion with OM3LA," said Booklan RA3AUU.
His application was wrong due to his call sign should be OE3DIA," said Booklan.
"He is back to the list. We also sent our appologies to Mafred DJ5MW."
The explanation for the confusion stemmed from how Dobrocky made his WRTC application, as he listed himself as an Austrian citizen, though he used his OM3LA callsign for most of his WRTC qualifiers.
Another controversial choice came in Asia #3, where the committee extended team leader bids to UN9LW, 5B4WN and UN7LZ.
Left out was Champ E21EIC, who had more points than Valery Zhilyaev UN7LZ in a radio-sport.net review of the top scores from AS #3.
"We calculated E21EIC scores several times based on Selection criteria, so his score is lower than UN7LZ and 9K2RR," said RA3AUU.
But the radio-sport.net numbers shows E21EIC with 3,981 points to 3,695 for UN7LZ.
One other change came in Europe, the Baltic region of EU #3, where Ged Lucinskas LY3BA/LY9Y qualified, because regional winner Tonno Vahk ES5TV announced he would choose fellow Estonian Toivo Hallikivi ES2RR as his WRTC teammate.
"LY9A got a WRTC seat due to #2 in Europe Area 3 ES2RR confirmed to be a team member of ES5TV team," read the website announcement from the 2010 organizers.
One notable operator missing from the team leader list was Masaki Masa Okano JH4UYB, who not only led qualifying in the all-Japan region in Asia, but also had the highest qualifying score of any operator in the entire world.
Instead of Okano, Kazunori Watanabe JK3GAD got the bid as team leader from Japan. He was the only entry from the AS #1 region.
Meanwhile in the United States, there were no surprises in the four qualifying regions, as all of the top finishers had their entries accepted.
A question mark seems to hang only over one of them, as Mike Wetzel W9RE told radio-sport.net that he hasn't determined if he will go to Russia or not.
"Someone suggested I submit just in case," Wetzel told radio-sport.net. "I have not had much time to figure out what I am doing."
Check back with radio-sport.net for all the updates on WRTC 2010
Kotovsky had been in line to be selected, until Team UU7J was disqualified in the 2008 CQ WW SSB contest, one of several Multi-Single entries that was DQ'd in that test.
The UU7J team clearly lists Kotovsky as one of the operators on that Multi-Single effort: "UT5UGR, UU1AZ, UU4JDD, UU4JMG, UU5MAF, UU8JK, UU0JM" according to the team's log.
But chief WRTC 2010 organizer Harry Booklan RA3AUU says that was wrong.
"We received a letter from CQWW committee that UU4JMG was not a part of the UU7J team when they were DQed, so he is IN," Booklan told radio-sport.net.
One other piece of evidence that casts doubt on that is the 3830 report from UU7J, which was sent in two days after the contest, which also lists UU4JMG as an operator.
