N9N -- Update May 3

Things are progressing nicely on our Nautilus North Pole anniversary operating event. I heard from Chuck Motes, K1DFS/NNN0HAL, yesterday and he and his group are having discussions with LCDR Caskey and his staff at Historic Ship Nautilus about where we will be able to set up the stations. The really exciting news is that we will have the okay to operate continuously from 0900 Saturday, August 2, through 2359 Sunday night, August 3. That means someone will get a QSO with N9N at 2315 EDST, August 2, the precise moment when Nautilus and her crew of 116 "pierced the Pole," and became the first vessel to reach that point on the planet.

It also appears that I will have the opportunity for a book signing and speaking event at the Naval Submarine Force Museum and Library sometime that weekend--probably on Saturday. My publisher is also working on some other events in the Groton/New London area as well.

I will continue to update the special events station here on the blog and, if this turns out to be as successful as I suspect it will be, I will do an article on the whole operation so other groups can learn from our experiences. I really like the idea of doing special events stations in public locations. With all ham radio has to offer these days, I think it's a worthy goal to show it to as many people as possible, then let them decide if they want to learn more.

Of course, the reason for N9N is to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of a truly historic event that has somehow not gotten its due with the current generation. That one voyage by the world's most famous submarine literally changed the course of the Cold War and lifted the spirits of Americans at a time when they needed it most.

NOTE: Locate N9N on QRZ.com for details of the special event operation, including days, times, frequencies, and QSL info. By the way, one thing I did not anticipate was that QRZ would post the information so far in advance of the event. As you may know, special event callsigns like N9N are issued for short periods of time and may be issued to several groups during a year. I understand a contest group had the call sign recently and operated in the 7-land and New England QSO parties. That was NOT us from Nautilus. We only expect to activate the call letters on August 2 and 3 or a day or two either side.

Don Keith N4KC