IARU HF Championship

IARU HF Championship
Official name	IARU HF World Championship
Sponsor	International Amateur Radio Union; logs and results handled by the ARRL
When	Second full weekend of July
Contest period	1200 UTC Saturday to 1159 UTC Sunday (24 hours)
Exchange
Most stations	Signal report and ITU zone
Society HQ stations	Signal report and society abbreviation, such as "ARRL"
Bands	160, 80, 40, 20, 15 and 10 meters
Modes	CW and phone
Dates
2026	July 11–12, with WRTC 2026 in the United Kingdom
Logs due	Seven days after the contest ends
First held	1986 under its present name

The IARU HF Championship, officially the IARU HF World Championship, is a 24-hour contest held each July under the sponsorship of the International Amateur Radio Union (IARU), the worldwide federation of national amateur radio societies. Everyone works everyone, on CW and phone, and most stations send their ITU zone. Its special feature is the headquarters (HQ) stations put on the air by national societies, which count as extra multipliers. The ARRL, which serves as the IARU's International Secretariat, receives the logs and publishes the results. This article follows version 1.21 of the rules, as posted by the ARRL for the 2026 contest.

Who takes part

Any licensed amateur may enter, and any station may be worked, whatever its country. Most stations send a signal report and their ITU zone, one of the numbered zones into which the International Telecommunication Union divides the world. ITU zones are not the same as the CQ zones used by some other contests and are numbered differently; the contiguous United States, for example, falls in ITU zones 6, 7 and 8.

Each IARU member society may put a headquarters station on the air, which sends the society's abbreviation instead of a zone. W1AW, for example, sends "ARRL". The IARU International Secretariat station, NU1AW, sends "IARU", and members of the IARU Administrative Council and the regional executive committees send "AC", "R1", "R2" or "R3". An HQ operation may use several stations, but all of them must be in one ITU zone, and a society may have only one HQ call sign on each band and mode. Because every HQ station counts as a multiplier on each band, they are popular targets.

Exchange and scoring

Each station may be worked once per band and mode, so the same station can be worked on both CW and phone on each band. A contact with a station in the same ITU zone, or with an HQ or IARU official station, is worth one point. A contact on the same continent but in a different zone is worth three points, and one with a station on another continent and in another zone is worth five.

Multipliers are counted once per band, not per mode: each ITU zone, each HQ station and each of the four IARU official groups (AC, R1, R2 and R3). The final score is total points times total multipliers.

Bands, modes and categories

Only the six traditional contest bands are used: 160, 80, 40, 20, 15 and 10 meters. Stations must stay in the parts of each band accepted for the mode they are using and observe the contest-preferred segments in their region's band plan, which differ between the three IARU regions.

The main categories, in brief:

• Single operator, CW only, phone only or mixed mode, at QRP (5 watts or less), low power (100 watts or less) or high power (1,500 watts or the national limit, whichever is lower), with no spotting help.
• Single operator unlimited, the same but allowed to use public spotting networks such as the DX cluster.
• Multioperator, all mixed mode: single transmitter (high power, spotting networks allowed, at least ten minutes on a band and mode before changing) or two transmitters on different bands (low power, 100 watts, with no spotting help or call sign databases).
• A youth overlay for single operators aged 25 or younger.

There is no limit on operating time; any off period must be at least 30 minutes long.

Logs, awards and history

Logs are due seven days after the contest ends. Electronic logs in the Cabrillo format go through the ARRL's web app, and paper logs can be mailed to the IARU International Secretariat in Newington, Connecticut. Certificates go to the top entry in each category in each ITU zone, each DXCC entity and each ARRL section. Every HQ station receives a participation certificate, and stations with at least 250 contacts or 75 multipliers earn an achievement award.

The IARU sponsored an earlier July contest, the IARU Radiosport Championship, every year from 1977 until at least 1983, when the ARRL suggested it might be the last in that format. The ARRL's results for 1988 describe that year's event as the third running of the IARU HF World Championship, which places its first running in 1986. Since 1996 the World Radiosport Team Championship, in which two-person teams compete from identical stations, has been held during the IARU contest; WRTC 2026 took place in the United Kingdom on July 11–12, 2026.

Look up your own ITU zone on a zone map before the contest and set it in your logging software. It is often a different number from your CQ zone, and when you work an HQ station, log its society abbreviation in place of a zone.

See also

• Contesting
• ARRL contests
• ARRL International DX Contest
• World Radiosport Team Championship
• IARU regions

External links

• IARU HF World Championship, ARRL
• IARU HF World Championship rules, IARU