Radio Amateurs of Canada (RAC) announced the recipients of the Amateur of the Year Award for 2025. This year’s honorees, Fred (VE1FA) and Helen (VA1YL) Archibald, are recognized for their years of dedication to the amateur radio community.

Fred and Helen Archibald have been pillars of Amateur Radio in Canada for decades. While the award traditionally reflects contributions within a given year, their sustained excellence in 2025 – combined with a lifetime of service – made them compelling joint recipients.

In addition to being avid organizers of many DXpeditions, VE1FA is an instructor and technological innovator and VA1YL has served as President of the Canadian Ladies Amateur Radio Association. Learn more about Fred and Helen’s contributions to ham radio on the RAC website.

Source: Radio Amateurs of Canada

Flavio, IW2NEF will be active from Bayahibe, on the southeast coast of the Dominican Republic, during February 28 to March 3, 2026. QRV on 40-6m; SSB, FT8 & FT4 using a combination of monoband dipoles and end-fed wire vertical. QSL via IK2DUW.

Dates to be announced, but Paul G1THW plans to operate from Grenada as J38AP while he is on holiday there. He’s not yet sure of his operating setup (he will be QRP) so check back on his QRZ page for updates. QSL via LoTW and QRZ; no paper QSLs.

The first known community backend server for HamClock is now available for all HamClock users. The project, hamclock.com, is free for anyone to use and will keep existing HamClock installs running indefinitely.

Major work beyond OHB includes: rewriting the VOACAP propagation engine with cubic interpolation, building weather pressure maps in both millibar and inHg units at five resolutions, adding aurora map generation, real-time PSK Reporter spot data, Kp index from NOAA SWPC, overhauling satellite TLE tracking, and hardening the entire server for production use serving 1,600+ HamClocks.

With the passing of HamClock creator Elwood Downey (WB0OEW), HamClock will stop working in June unless users point their installations to a new backend service. Updating existing HamClock installations is a simple task. Users have two options, updating their hosts file, or updating the command used to start HamClock. Both require only simple text changes.

Hamclock.com is run by Bruce Edrich (W4BAE) and is built upon open-hamclock-backend.

Headlines from Amateur Radio Daily are made available to HamClock via open-hamclock-backed.

Source: HamClock.com

By Kevin, WA2AEY – “Received this rare one today, 42 years after the QSO ! Last year, I digitized 56 years worth of paper logs. I was amazed at the countries I had not gotten confirmed years ago. Over the course of many months and many emails, Danilo XQ4CW helped me to get this rare […]

Craig, K5AYO will be active holiday-style from Anguilla as VP2EYO during March 14-22, 2026. QRV on 40-10m; SSB, CW & FT8; mainly QRP. QSL via H/c.

Registration is now open for the Southeastern VHF Society 2026 conference. The event will take place in Macon, Georgia, US April 17-19. The conference is focused on amateur radio operation on VHF frequencies and above.

The technical conference begins Friday morning and will include a Luncheon with a guest speaker and continue Technical Presentations in the afternoon, with dinner out on the town, and continue with an evening flea market and hospitality suite. Saturday morning the technical presentations continue and conclude early afternoon when the antenna range and Rover display opens.

Interested amateurs can register here.

Source: Southeastern VHF Society

Hot on the heels of his FR/G3JUN (Reunion) activity, Jun JL8AQH is now on air from St Helena Island as ZD7AQH. QRV on 30m CW so far. QSL via LoTW.  — Previously, Jun has been active from VP9, ZL7, ZS1 & XV9 – check his website for more info.

The Titanic Memorial special event, EG1912T, takes place April 10th through April 15th honoring all on board the ship.

We particularly wish to honour those who participated in the rescue, especially the radio station managers and telegraph operators Jack Phillips, Harold Bride and Harold Cottam, who played a leading role in the telegraphic communications of the most shocking rescue in history: the sinking of the RMS Titanic.

The event will take place on all bands utilizing all modes with an emphasis on CW. QSL cards will be available via bureau. More information is available on the EG1912T QRZ page.

Source: EG1912T

Following on from his 3B8G activity, look for Suvarna VU3OPT to be on air from Rodrigues island as 3B9N during early April to mid-May 2026. Again QRV on 20-10m, CW. Location: MH10qh. QSL via VU3OPT or QRZ logbook. More info here.