KPH Night of Nights is ham bands this year

Usual time, 0001 UTC as July 12 turns into the 13th, but on amateur frequencies. From "RD:"

Night of Nights 12 July
When:
Sunday, 12 July 2020
Description:
Night of Nights
http://www.radiomarine.org/
12 July every year. The first transmission will be at 0501pm Pacific time (0000 UTC 13 July).

As most True Believers probably know by now, the Point Reyes National Seashore has closed the park and suspended all volunteer activities until further notice.  Since we at the MRHS are all park volunteers, that includes us.  Thus KPH, KFS and K6KPH will be off the air "for the duration". 

 

We will not be able to transmit on our usual KPH commercial frequencies.  However we are working hard (testing underway as I write) to remote key two full power amateur transmitters on 3550kc and 7050kc under the call W6AWO (the K6KPH call is restricted to use by transmitters actually at the Bolinas transmit site).

The transmitters are at Valley Springs, California and the control point is at Inverness, California.  Test transmissions from these transmitters should begin shortly.  On Night of Nights the traditional opening message will be sent by these transmitters after which W6AWO and other MRHS member stations will stand by for calls.  Live keying (as opposed to sending a file like the opening message) may be a little stilted due to the way the control software works.  Speed will be 15wpm.

MARS Announces HF Skills Exercise

From ARRL Letter:

 

Members of the Military Auxiliary Radio System (MARS) will conduct an HF skills exercise July 20 - 24 to hone their operating skills and messaging-handling capabilities. MARS members will be reaching out to the amateur radio community via the 60 meters Channel 1 Net (5330.5 kHz dial) twice a day, the SATERN HF net (14.265 MHz), and by contacting various stations via HFLink throughout the exercise.

Participating MARS members will be requesting assistance with collecting county status information as well as airport weather information, called METARs. MARS members will also be passing ICS 213 messages to numerous Department of Defense (DoD), federal, and amateur radio addressees.

This exercise will be announced via WWV at 00:10 and via WWVH at 00:50 starting on or about July 13. WWV and WWVH listeners will be asked to take an online listener survey. This HF radio training event will not impact regular communications.

A Department of Defense program, MARS organizes and trains amateur radio volunteers to operate in military radio networks to support HF radio contingency communications. Among other missions, MARS provides communication support to civil authorities and assists in establishing normal communication under emergency conditions. -- Thanks to Paul English, Chief, Army MARS