Special Event?  What’s a Special Event?

 Amateur radio is a pretty diverse hobby based on hams talking to each other.  One branch of the game is for a local group of hams to announce and operate a “special event” celebrating or commemorating some historic occurrence or some other notable date or happening.  Hams around the world try to contact the special event station and get special cards or certificates back from the special event station.  Usually special event confirmations are colorful, many suitable for framing and go up on the wall for display.  Hams who work a lot of special event stations are sometimes called “paper hangers” for that reason.

 There are always special events going on.  Some of them seem kind of simple (an annual county fair, for instance), many are historic (sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald, the loss of The Sullivans in WWII), but all are an opportunity for the local ham operators to tell a bit of the story of the special event over the air and send out some additional information with the contact confirmation card.

 The American Radio Relay League (the parent body for American amateur radio) keeps a registry of current special events:

 http://www.arrl.org/contests/spev.html

 Where possible, special events are coordinated with other public events that let the club operate in a public setting.  This gets a little more public exposure for the hobby.

 Setting up a “portable” operation at a historic or commemorative site is good practice for emergency preparedness.  The operation generates publicity for the event or happening being remembered, and we hams think it just good fun all the way around.