Celebrating 5 Years of Holiday Spirit on the Air

Now with an AI-Powered Award System!

As the Christmas season approaches, radio amateurs across the world can once again look forward to hearing the cheerful special callsigns PH25XMAS and PH26HNY on the HF bands. These stations will be active during the Christmas holidays and the first week of January 2026, sharing goodwill and season’s greetings over the airwaves.

This year marks the first lustrum (5th anniversary) of the festive XMAS and HNY event calls. To mark the occasion, the organizing team has developed an all-new automated award platform — a creative blend of amateur radio, Python programming, and artificial intelligence. It is called SAVS (Special Award Validation System).

The system will be operational, starting the 6^th of December 2025. Until then a page is showing a count-down timer to the first date of operation and first opportunity to check the award eligibility.

A Fully Automated Award System:  SAVS

Participants who have made QSOs with PH##XMAS and/or PH##HNY stations between 2021 and 2026 can check whether they qualify for a commemorative certificate.

• The platform automatically searches remote and local ADIF logs (PH21XMAS–PH26HNY).
• Operators whose callsigns appear three or more times in the logbooks across the past four years and this year are eligible for an award.
• After entering your callsign on the Entry Page, the system validates your QSOs, displays the results, and — if qualified — instantly generates a personalized PDF certificate for download.

Behind the scenes, a Python Flask server performs the validation, integrates with QRZ.com for data verification, and generates your award PDF with just one click.

Open Source and AI-Assisted

The entire system was created with the help of AI tools and is released as a fully open-source project on GitHub: https://github.com/PA3EFR/SAVS_XMAS_HNY

Every element — from log validation to PDF generation — runs autonomously, demonstrating how classic ham radio activity can harmoniously combine with modern coding and machine learning.

Join the Celebration

So this festive season, when you hear “CQ from PH25XMAS” or “CQ from PH26HNY”, don’t hesitate to call back!

You might not only exchange warm holiday greetings, but also earn yourself a special place in the logs — and a beautiful award to commemorate it.

📡 Brought to you by Radio Scouting Fellowship PA3EFR/J

Welcome to the November-December 2025 edition of the SARC Communicator, your go-to guide for all things amateur radio in our vibrant RF neighborhood. This edition is a journey across the history, innovation, and fascinating activities of amateur radio.

As we transition from crisp fall days to the festive glow of holidays ahead, this issue looks at the enduring legacy of Émile Baudot, the pioneer of digital communication, and revisits the vital role of radio during the catastrophic 1917 Halifax Explosion. 

For satellite operators, discover how to seamlessly integrate SkyRoof with the Icom IC-9700 for LEO satellite operations, and check out our review of the past year in amateur satellites. 

Technical articles dive into RTTY as a viable emergency digital mode and explores the fascinating use of radio telemetry in insect tracking. We also have several articles on a current ‘hot’ activity, homebrew vertical antennas for Parks on the Air (POTA).  Finally, catch up on the excitement of the ARDF World Championship and a glimpse into the future of Software Defined Radio. 

There are articles for all levels of amateur radio and you’re sure to find something of interest.

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Dive in for inspiration, connections, and the pulse of what makes our hobby of hobbies special. A special year-end thank you to our contributors and columnists. On behalf of SARC and SEPAR, we wish all of you a safe and happy holiday season.  

Stay engaged—our readership powers us forward!

Enjoy this final issue of 2025!

~ John VE7TI, Editor

Contents for this issue:

Welcome to the November-December 2025 edition of the SARC Communicator, your go-to guide for all things amateur radio in our vibrant RF neighborhood. This edition is a journey across the history, innovation, and fascinating activities of amateur radio.

As we transition from crisp fall days to the festive glow of holidays ahead, this issue looks at the enduring legacy of Émile Baudot, the pioneer of digital communication, and revisits the vital role of radio during the catastrophic 1917 Halifax Explosion. 

For satellite operators, discover how to seamlessly integrate SkyRoof with the Icom IC-9700 for LEO satellite operations, and check out our review of the past year in amateur satellites. 

Technical articles dive into RTTY as a viable emergency digital mode and explores the fascinating use of radio telemetry in insect tracking. We also have several articles on a current ‘hot’ activity, homebrew vertical antennas for Parks on the Air (POTA).  Finally, catch up on the excitement of the ARDF World Championship and a glimpse into the future of Software Defined Radio. 

There are articles for all levels of amateur radio and you’re sure to find something of interest.

Download Full resolution

Download smaller low resolution

View as a flip page magazine

Dive in for inspiration, connections, and the pulse of what makes our hobby of hobbies special. A special year-end thank you to our contributors and columnists. On behalf of SARC and SEPAR, we wish all of you a safe and happy holiday season.  

Stay engaged—our readership powers us forward!

Enjoy this final issue of 2025!

~ John VE7TI, Editor

Contents for this issue:

PUCS: Take control of the pile-up!

Every special event station (SES) operator knows the thrill — and the chaos — of a true pile-up. The excitement of dozens of stations calling you simultaneously can quickly turn into frustration when QRM, doubles, and missed calls clutter the frequency. Wouldn’t it be great if there were a way to bring order to that chaos without losing the fun of real-time operating?

Enter PUCS, the Pile-Up Control System, a fully open-source, web-based platform designed by and for radio amateurs. Born from the ingenuity of the Radio Scouting Fellowship PA3EFR/J, PUCS elegantly blends traditional ham ingenuity with modern AI-assisted software development. The result is a modular, flexible system that any club or individual can tailor to their own operating style — from large-scale SES activities to small club field days.

PUCS can be seen operational at pucs.pa3efr.nl

From Normandy to the Netherlands

The idea for PUCS was sparked during an SES operation on the beaches of Normandy, where operators of TM80DDAY overheard multiple Australian colleagues discussing a private sign-up system for QSOs. Intrigued but unable to obtain the software, Erwin PA3EFR and his team decided to build their own version — and then share it freely with the world. With the help of AI tools and some Python wizard Barry, PC1K, PUCS was born. It was much later when Erwin decided to develop PUCS within his own environment.

Today, PUCS is freely available, fully documented, and open to anyone willing to experiment. It’s more than just software — it’s an invitation to collaborate, learn, and contribute to a smarter way of managing pile-ups.

What Makes PUCS Unique

At its heart, PUCS is a distributed system consisting of two parts:

• Frontend (commercial hosting): This is the public entry point where operators register their callsigns to join the queue. Think of it as a digital “waiting room” — transparent, fair, and visible to everyone.  
• Backend (local PC): Here’s where the magic happens. The backend checks QRZ.com logbooks every minute, automatically removes callsigns that have already been worked, and provides an admin dashboard to manage the queue, export logs, and adjust settings on the fly.

The system uses Python’s Flask framework, SQLite databases, and SocketIO for real-time updates — all standard, well-documented technologies familiar to many technically minded amateurs. It’s simple enough for a club to host on a modest PC, yet robust enough to handle large SES events.

Open Source, Open Spirit

PUCS is more than a tool — it’s a philosophy. The creators explicitly invite others to modify, enhance, and restyle the system to their own preferences. Whether you want to change the interface colors, add logging features, integrate digital modes, or redesign the operator dashboard, the code is yours to explore. There’s no hidden agenda, no locked components — just open code and open collaboration.
All scripts, examples, and documentation are available on GitHub:

https://github.com/PA3EFR/PUCS

Why You Should Try It

PUCS is a perfect project for your club’s next technical workshop. It offers practical lessons in networking, APIs, databases, and web hosting — all wrapped around a real amateur radio application. 
Beyond that, it promotes fairness in pile-ups, gives weaker stations a chance to make contact, and even allows SWLs to log their participation.

So fire up your soldering iron if you must, but this time, your “kit” is made of code.
Download PUCS, make it your own, and bring calm to your next pile-up.

As Erwin, PA3EFR, says: “Ask AI as your friend for support — and enjoy your own moments of challenge!” On behalf of the Radio Scouting Fellowship PA3EFR/J we look forward to see you on our PUCS screens at a next special event occasion.

~ Sander PD9HIX

Its a big issue, and great articles, along with our regular columnists.

Now read in over 165 countries, this issue brings you 120+ pages of Amateur Radio content from the Southwest corner of Canada and around the globe. With less fluff and ads than other Amateur Radio publications, you will find Amateur Radio related articles, projects, profiles, news, tips and how-to's for all levels of the hobby.

Download the May-June 2025 Communicator in 
LARGE or SMALL format, or read it on-line like a magazine

Previous Communicator issues:

Search for past Communicator issues

We now have a comprehensive searchable index back to 2007
HERE.  

As always, thank you to our contributors, and your feedback is always welcome. 

The deadline for the next edition is June 15th.

If you have news or events from your club or photos, stories, projects or other items of interest from BC or elsewhere, please contact us at [email protected]

73,

John VE7TI
'The Communicator' Editor

The Table of Contents for the May-June 2025 Communicator issue:

Manna@80! 

Operations Manna and Chowhound were lifesaving food drops to Northwest Holland 80 years ago, just prior to the end of World War Two. Over 20,000 people had died from starvation and a colder than normal winter. Allied pilots and support staff from the UK, the US, Canada, Poland, and Australia dropped over 7,000 tons of food behind enemy lines. 

There are 10 special event stations operating in these countries Friday, April 25 through Sunday, April 27. If you contact 4 or more, a special event certificate will be issued. Check QRZ.com for any of the following callsigns or Manna80.radio on the web where the stations’ current operating frequencies are available via HamAlert.

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We just graduated this mom and her two kids from our recent on-line course. The kids are age 11 and 13 and passed the written exam AND a CW endorsement with neighbour Guy VA7GI coaching them. 

Congratulations and see you on the bands.