Radio Society of Tucson CACTUS 2025 Special Operating Event When: Friday November 21 through Sunday November 30, 2025 Abstract The CACTUS event is a special event in approximately the form of the popular 13 Colonies, Route 66, Lewis and Clark Trail, and others. It promotes Amateur Radio activity through a celebration of the unique varieties of CACTUS in the US Southwest. Basic structure We will have 6 special call signs, one for each letter of the word CACTUS, and two “bonus” call signs. Stations from Arizona can sign up to be activators, and the rest of the world are the hunters. Hunters seek to make and log a contact with some or all of the 8 stations: K7C, K7A, N7C, K7T, K7U, K7S, and our two club calls, K7RST and AK7AZ. We will operate all HF bands (except 60m), and additionally encourage simplex contacts on 6m and 2m (no repeater contacts please). All popular modes will be represented – SSB, AM, CW, RTTY, FM, FT8, PSK, maybe others. Exchange and log entry The exchange is not mandated, but typically will be call sign, signal report (RS/RST/RSQ), state (US), province (CA), or country (DX). Other information that might be exchanged according to operator’s preference and style might be activator’s home call, hunter’s op name. The log entry should have at least call, date, time, and band, and optionally some other information passed during the QSO, at operator’s discretion. Scheduling An important factor in making CACTUS run smoothly and successfully is scheduling the activator operators. Our goal is to have a strong on-the-air presence throughout at least the US daytime hours, and into the evening, with multiple call signs and multiple modes available. It’s a large number of operator-hours. Radio Society of Tucson is welcoming and encouraging volunteer operators from anywhere in the state. We are developing a scheduling system that will allow viewing the 10 day event calendar to see where more operators are needed, and self-scheduling into one or many slots. The scheduling system is being tested now, and will be live and available in a few more days. For more information As the event details continue to solidify, we will keep this information updated on the club’s QRZ pages (AK7AZ, K7RST) and the club website at https://k7rst.club. Also you are welcome to contact the CACTUS team with questions or to express interest in participating. Please use the email address below: RST-cactus-work-group@googlegroups.com QSL Card Examples Certificate Example
I'm looking forward to working this event, as one of the CACTUS calling stations. I'll be on FT8 across the bands primarily, and perhaps some Phone ops as well. Should be a lot of fun. Dave/K7GPS
