Volunteers Bring Last Commercial Maritime Station Back on Air for 26th Year

The silencing of the last maritime radio station in the US in California in 1999 gave voice to an effort to create the Maritime Radio Historical Society, K6KPH, to preserve its treasured Morse Code tradition.

Every year, the event, "Night of Nights," celebrates this tradition on the anniversary of the day that the station signed off - ensuring that 12th July would not mark the station's final signoff, after all. Broadcast engineers, radio operators and history enthusiasts have seen to that. They volunteered to bring new life to the receiving site at the Point Reyes National Seashore and to the Bolinas Radio transmitter site, returning Morse service to the station known as KPH/KFS. 

This year's 26th edition of "Night of Nights" is a collaboration of modern skills and classic style equipment, including "Marconi T" type antennas at both the transmitter and receive sites. KPH and KFS will be operating on assigned commercial frequencies, while K6KPH will be operating on several HF amateur radio bands.

For times, frequencies and QSL information, please check the Maritime Radio Historical Society website - http://www.radiomarine.org.

Hamshack Hotline To Be Discontinued

Hamshack Hotline, the free VOIP telecomm service is to be discounted. The service announced it would be discontinued, effective the 29th August 2025. The project began in 2018 and grew to be a global communications network with a peak establishment of 7,000 interconnections across numerous servers. Hamshack Hotline's board of directors said it will donate whatever cash reserves it may have to a charity that supports military veterans. 

Grant to Aid Clublog Operations Upgrade

Expect improved operations soon from ClubLog, thanks to some grant money to cover the costs.ClubLog, a service that has become a mainstay for DXers worldwide, has received an $8,000 grant in US currency for a hardware upgrade to improve operations.

The funding from the Northern  California  DX  Foundation is being given to Michael, G7VJR, ClubLog's author. In a DX foundation press release, ClubLog reminded users that the expensive upgrade of its servers is necessary to support expanded activity. 

“...once the new servers are deployed, Club Log will be using cutting edge servers which are faster, more energy efficient and ready for years of high-endurance 24/7 work.”

— Michael, G7VJR

According to a press release from the DX foundation, the free ClubLog statistics service supports an estimated 130,000 callsigns worldwide and stores records of 1.25 billion QSOs.