The E77DX brand is known to almost everyone who has ever been more serious about contesting. Behind it stands Emir Memić, nicknamed Braco, the founder of one of the biggest contest stations in Europe and operátor s výsledkami, o ktorých väčšina z nás môže len snívať. Rok 2026 však jeho meno spojil aj s udalosťami, ktoré do contestovej komunity priniesli otázniky. Team Disqualification for WRTC 2026 a preklasifikovanie výsledku EF8R v CQ WW SSB 2025 they cast a shadow over an otherwise exceptional career.
Let's look at both: the successes and the facts that complicate them today.
You will read in the article
From Kozary to Vienna
Emir Memić, a native of Bosnia, who today lives and works in Vienna. He became a radio amateur in 1987 in the radio club "Kozara" YU4JHI - YZ4X in the former Yugoslavia and started racing a year later. The war in Bosnia forced him to move to Vienna in 1992. He studied at the Technical University with a focus on KV communications, became a member of the OE1XTU club and in 1993 received the OE1EMS brand.
Between 1992 and 2008, he built several contest stations in Austria, which broadcast under the brands OE1A, OE1W, OE3A, OE3K and OE4A. Between 1996 and 2004 he was very active from the island of Krk and co-founded the radio club "Rika" 9A1RKA, 9A0R.
E7DX – the station that made Bosnia a multiplier
In 2007, he started building the E7DX station in his hometown. Today it is among the largest stations in Europe and its team among the most successful in the world. Since 2008, Bosnia has been an almost certain multiplier in most contests thanks to the E7DX. The team won several European victories and records in the Single Operator All Band and Multi-Single categories.
CQ WW database confirms stable performance. In the Multi-Single category, E7DX's SSB score ranged from 10.2 million points in 2009 to 19.06 million in 2024. As a single, E77DX scored 7.38 million points in SSB from E7DX in 2016 and 7.32 million in 2020. In CW, he worked as D4DX in 2024 with a profit 20.26 million points and in 2025 as 5J1DX with a gain of 16.74 million points.
Podľa Next Generation DX má na konte viac ako 1,6 milióna QSO a vysielal z viac ako 50 krajín DXCC. Contesty also ran from stations 4O3A, 4U1VIC, 9A1P, ED8X, CN3A, HB0/T94DX and D4C. A distant DX expedition was a trip to Timor-Leste in April 2023 under the mark 4W1A. It also owns the brands 8Q7DX and D4DX and regularly broadcasts within SOTA, IOTA also like /MM. In multi-multi teams, he participated, for example, in the result of CN3A in CQ WW SSB 2017 (34.1 million points) or D4C in CQ WW CW 2023 (56.3 million points).
Video: Contest King – Braco E77DX and the way to the E7DX
On four WRTCs
He competed in the WRTC World Championships three times:
- Boston (USA) 2014 with Ivan OE1DIA,
- Wittenberg (Germany) 2018 with Chris 9A5K,
- Bologna (Italy) 2023 with Vlad E70T.
- Wyboston (UK) 2026 with DJ4MX
He passed on his knowledge at the Contest University in Montichiari, at Iberradio in Ávila or at the HAM Radio exhibition in Friedrichshafen. He lectured on contesting, improving technique and safe climbing on poles. He is the founder of the Austrian Contest Club and Bosnia and Herzegovina Contest Club, member of the Bavarian Contest Club and co-founder of the Istra Contest Conference in Poreč. Through the Austrian union ÖVSV, he is active in the C4 commission of the IARU. In 2013, he founded a company focused on the construction of masts and antennas, consulting and servicing of amateur radio equipment. He built and serviced masts and antennas for stations all over the world.
EF8R and reclassification in CQ WW SSB 2025
In CQ WW SSB 2025, E77DX appeared from station EF8R, known as "Magic Mountain" in Santa María de Guía, Gran Canaria. The result is impressive: 11,100 QSOs, 176 zones, 623 countries and 25,747,775 points in 48 hours. Preparation videos openly talked about the world record attempt.
However, on 21 October 2026, CQ WW Director John Dorr, K1AR, announced that the EF8R result had been reclassified from Single Operator All Band to Single Operator All Band Assisted. Results and records have been adjusted accordingly.
"At a recent request from Brac, E77DX, the EF8R result in CQ WW SSB 2025 has been reclassified from Single Operator All Band to Single Operator All Band Assisted." – CQ WW blog
This detail is important. The category was changed at the request of the operator himself. The post does not give a reason, does not refer to any rule, and does not mention the findings of the evaluators. The question of whether there should not have been a disqualification is therefore unsupported by publicly available information.
Older entry: CQ WW SSB 2008
The CQ WW database contains one more record that belongs to the overall picture. Station E7DX's result in the Multi-Single category in CQ WW SSB 2008 is listed as DQ with the reason "adjustment of log times to meet the 10 minute rule". E77DX is also listed among the operators of this team. It was the result of a team, not an individual, and almost twenty years have passed since then.
WRTC 2026: disqualification of MB1I
The biggest shadow came from WRTC 2026 in Wyboston. As we wrote in the article about changed results of WRTC 2026, an analysis of the logs revealed a pattern that the Judging Committee described in three parts:
- a foreign station occupied the planned frequency for a long time before the race and initially handed it over to the WRTC station, whose brand thus became a well-known participant in the scheme,
- pirate stations impersonated stations carrying multipliers and established links with WRTC stations,
- these connections were received by all WRTC stations, but significantly more by the identified MB2M and MB2A teams.
Team MB1I, with operators E77DX and DJ4MX, was disqualified under rule 12.2, which prohibits the intentional disclosure of a team's identity. Along with him, MB2A and MB2M were also disqualified under the same rule, while MB5Q was disqualified under rule 12.7. The originally declared winner of MB2M was thus dropped from the results. Team MB5O (DJ5MW, DM5EE) became the new winner with 7,310,308 points ahead of MB4G (N6MJ, KL9A) and MB1T (K5ZD, W2SC). According to the organizers, disqualifications apply to teams as a whole, not to individual operators.
You have to be precise with the MB1I. The recalculated results document states that the team deliberately revealed the identities of the operators through a similar frequency swap and both of its launch frequencies kept the stations linked to its operators. However, it also explicitly states that MB1I was not involved in the pirated multiplier scam. Both operators confessed to what happened.
For completeness: the findings from WRTC 2026 also led to a retrospective review WRTC 2022, which took place in 2023 in Italy. Teams I44W and I43Z were disqualified.
Video: E77DX and DJ4MX after disqualification
Both operators publicly commented on the disqualification in a video.
What this means for his reputation
The non-disclosure rule is not a formality. At WRTC, all teams from comparable stations compete with the same antennas and limited power. Brand anonymity is one of the fundamental pillars of fairness, as it prevents friends and fans from targeting a specific team. Organizers called MB1I's violation so inconsistent with the non-disclosure agreement that it warranted disqualification.
This is a serious blemish for an operator of his stature. Together with the reclassification of EF8R and the older record from 2008, it creates an image that is not conducive to its reputation. At the same time, it must be said that in both cases from 2026, a step towards correction came from his side: a confession and his own request to change the category.
Two faces of one contestant
On the one hand, there is a huge benefit to the community. Together with Chris 9A5K, he was responsible for the creation of the well-known DXLog contest software. As part of the YOTA projects and at his stations E7DX and OE1W, he has been inviting young operators to try out work in a large contest team for years. He lectured, taught and helped build antennas and masts all over the world.
Na druhej strane stoja fakty z oficiálnych rozhodnutí, ktoré jeho kredit znižujú. Ako ich kto zváži, je na každom z nás. Contesting však stojí na dôvere, že výsledky v tabuľkách zodpovedajú pravidlám, a tú si musí každý operator obhajovať znova v každom contestovom víkende.