The idea of the Baltic Contest born in 1964, when members of KPI radio club (now KTU RC – Kaunas University of Technology Radio Club) decided to establish a separate contest especially for the Baltic States. At first, it took some time to agree on rules and get relevant permissions from the government. The planned contest did not fit to the USSR supported format of HF contests. A temporary permission was given when all the radio sports federations  of all Baltic States supported the contest. Thanks to LRSF (Lithuanian Radio Sports Federation) and KPI radio club the SB-65 contest took place in 1965. There were 44 participants from Estonia and Lithuania, and 68 from Latvia. The winners of that year were UQ2CC, UQ2KAA and Lithuanian RSF. Next year Estonian RSF hosted this contest and since then the contest for Baltic States continued. There were also suggestions to expand the contest by including Leningrad, Kaliningrad, Belarus or other territories, but the primary idea survived with a little help from the active HF radio operators.

In 1971, for the first time, the ESM Minsk 22 computer was used to check the logs. The computer was huge and so were the memory recorders, which were used to enter the logs of contesters using the perforated cards. The cross check of logs took more than 24 hours. The pioneers of this technology were some KPI radio club members and KPI lecturer S. Buožis.

After the declaration of independence in 1990, the SB contest was expended to wider audience and became the Baltic Contest. Each year Baltic Contest gathers about 500 participants from 40 different countries.

If you have any questions regarding the Baltic Contest, please contact us via email balticcontest@inbox.lt 

Or Karolina Vaičiūnaitė LY5XX, Baltic Contest manager, directly via email ly5xx@yahoo.com