Filipe Lopes, CT1ILT, is a well-known contester who regularly participates in the major international contests, often operating under the callsign CR6K.

Filipe has created a very useful online Callsign Trainer, designed to help radio amateurs improve callsign recognition and typing speed, for both CW and SSB operation.

Fast and accurate callsign copying is one of the key skills in contesting, especially when dealing with high-rate pileups. This trainer provides a simple and effective way to practice and improve both speed and accuracy.

The concept is straightforward: listen, recognize the callsign, type it, and repeat.

It’s simple, effective… and surprisingly addictive!

A great training tool for experienced contesters as well as operators who want to sharpen their skills before the next contest.

Give it a try and see how fast you can get!

👉 Try the CT1ILT Callsign Trainer⁠

73 and good training!

The Türkiye HF Contest returns this weekend, August 22–23, 2026, for its second edition, bringing an important new feature to the international contesting calendar: CW joins SSB, making the event a CW, SSB and Mixed-mode competition.

The contest will run for 24 hours, from 06:00 UTC on Saturday, August 22 to 06:00 UTC on Sunday, August 23, and is open to radio amateurs worldwide.

Activity will take place on 160, 80, 40, 20, 15 and 10 metres, with a wide range of Single Operator categories in CW, SSB and Mixed, as well as Multi-Operator categories.

For DX stations, QSOs with Turkish stations are particularly valuable, while Turkish provinces and DXCC countries count as multipliers on each band. Another interesting feature is the additional incentive for low-band activity, with valid contacts on 160 and 80 metres receiving double QSO points.

In the Mixed categories, the same station can also be worked on the same band in both CW and SSB, with both contacts counting for QSO points.

Following its first edition in 2025, the addition of CW represents an important step in the development of this young contest. It will be interesting to see whether the new format succeeds in attracting more operators and increasing overall activity.

An Interesting Calendar Overlap

There is another interesting aspect to this contest weekend.

The Türkiye HF Contest partially overlaps with the YO DX HF Contest, another well-established European event taking place on the same weekend.

The Türkiye HF Contest runs from 06:00 UTC Saturday to 06:00 UTC Sunday, while the YO DX HF Contest starts at 12:00 UTC on Saturday and continues until Sunday.

This creates an 18-hour overlap, during which both contests will generate CW and SSB activity across many of the same HF bands.

For operators, this means paying particular attention to the exchange being received and correctly identifying which contest a station is participating in. At the same time, having two international events running simultaneously should contribute to a particularly active weekend on the European HF bands.

We Will Be Watching the Log Submissions

From a contesting perspective, the overlap also creates an interesting situation that will be worth following after the weekend.

We are curious to see the number of submitted logs for both the Türkiye HF Contest and the YO DX HF Contest.

The comparison will be particularly interesting for the Türkiye HF Contest, which is only in its second edition and has expanded from its original SSB format to include CW.

Will the introduction of CW bring a significant increase in participation? And how will the simultaneous YO DX HF Contest affect activity and log submissions?

We will have the answers once the submission periods are over.

For now, there is only one thing to do:

Turn on the radio and enjoy a very busy contest weekend!

See you on the bands!

The YO DX HF Contest is back this weekend, and this year there is an additional reason to take a look: a completely renewed website with a fresh, modern and very attractive design.

The new online presence gives the contest a much more international identity, combining the Romanian amateur radio tradition with a clean and engaging visual presentation.

📅 22–23 August 2026
⏱️ 12:00 UTC Saturday – 11:59:59 UTC Sunday
📻 CW & SSB – 24 hours

The YO DX HF Contest is a great opportunity to work Romania and stations from around the world, and the new website makes finding the rules, information and log submission much easier.

Congratulations to the YO DX Contest team for investing not only in the contest itself, but also in its digital identity and communication.

A modern contest deserves a modern presentation!

Check out the new website: https://www.yodx.ro/

See you in the pileups!
73 & good luck to all participants!

The World Radiosport Team Championship 2026, held in the United Kingdom from July 8 to 13, has highlighted two issues that are becoming increasingly important in modern radiosport: contest integrity and real-time scoring.

WRTC 2026 brought together 50 teams of two operators competing from stations designed to provide conditions that were as equal as possible. More than 260,000 QSOs were made during the event, while live scoring and real-time standings allowed the amateur radio community around the world to follow the competition as it unfolded.

The initial results placed:

1. MB2M – VE3DZ / UW7LL – 7,460,840
2. MB5O – DJ5MW / DM5EE – 7,369,782
3. MB1I – E77DX / DJ4MX – 7,346,885

However, on July 27, 2026, the WRTC 2026 Organising Committee announced that it had identified a number of discrepancies in the logs of some competing stations which could potentially affect the final standings.

The Judging Committee was therefore asked to carry out a new comprehensive analysis of the results, with the organisers emphasizing the importance of fairness and competition integrity.

Whatever the final outcome of this process may be, the WRTC 2026 experience raises an important question for the future of radiosport:

How can technology make contests both more engaging to follow and increasingly transparent?

From Traditional Contesting to Live Contesting

For decades, amateur radio contests followed a very simple sequence.

Operators participated in the contest, submitted their logs and waited for the organisers to complete the checking process before the final results were published.