An international group of operators will be on the air throughout the month in a mutual celebration of International Cat Day and International Dog Day.

The combined special event stations will be active from the 1st of August through to the 31st of August, to call attention to the needs of abandoned, abused and homeless pets around the world – and to advocate for adoption and humane treatment. In the spirit of friendship and the shared love of animals, they will be looking to raise awareness and hear one another’s stories.

The hams calling CQ are animal-lovers themselves who know the power of rescue because many have been deeply involved in organized animal-welfare efforts or have included a rescued dog or cat in their family.

International Dog Day (and in the US, National Dog Day) is August 26 every year. International Cat Day is August 8.

International Dog Day began as an amateur radio event in 2022 and has grown since then. Stations for dogs and cats will be on the air this year from Latvia, the UK, the US, the Netherlands, India and Germany.

Throughout the US, a growing team of radio amateurs will share the callsign K0DOG, calling CQ as members of the Dog Day Radio Amateur Radio Club. All operators will be on the HF bands using CW and SSB. Dog-station callsigns will include YL1DOG, GB4DOG, VU2MGS, DLØDOG, KØDOG and PDØØDOG, among others. Cat stations will be calling CQ as DL0CAT, GB4CAT and DAØCAT.

This year’s certificate for successful chasers will be a colorful downloadable document with endorsement stamps added for each unique callsign worked. A numeric counter will appear on each of the endorsement stamps for operators making more than one contact with a unique callsign. KØDOG also plans to make downloadable eEQSL cards available.

The website https://hamlog.online/iddicd2026/ will give hunters for both events a chance to claim their awards as they earn them and to see who is currently on the air. Until August, the website will be counting down the days until the event begins.

You may also visit the websites dogdayradio.org and catdayradio.org for updates about both events. Both websites contain information about the special-event callsigns and how to find their operating schedules -- and a chance to meet the dogs and cats who inspired them.

Be aware that all special-event operators will be working like dogs – and cats – because they want to hear and share as many rescue stories as they can.

Source: Dog Day Radio Amateur Radio Club

Technical papers are sought for the Proceedings of the (second annual) Zero Retries Digital Conference (ZRDC) 2026, to be held at the Roundhouse Conference Center in San Ramon, California, USA on Friday, October 16, 2026. This coincides with the first day of Pacificon 2026.

ZRDC 2026 is being hosted by the Zero Retries newsletter. Papers will be published in the Conference Proceedings of the ZRDC. Authors do not need to present at the conference to have their papers included in the Proceedings, although presenters are highly encouraged to submit a separate technical paper (for the Proceedings). (All presenter presentations will also be published in the Proceedings.)

A typical technical paper for ZRDC is a short (typically 5-10 pages) but in-depth explanation of a project, experiment, or new technique. A technical paper typically includes the problem(s) to be solved and how the solution was built and tested, and what was learned. Diagrams, data, and code are often included. The intended audience for technical papers are not just the attendees of a particular ZRDC - they're intended to help others implement or enhance the subject of the technical paper.

A ZRDC technical paper is different from a presentation slide deck:

• A technical paper is self-contained - all of the needed detail is in the text of the technical paper. A presentation slide deck provides speaking points - the detail is in the presentation narration.
• A technical paper explains the idea in depth for the long term. A presentation slide deck is a "snapshot" of an idea at that moment in time.
• Very generally, a technical paper explains the details of how you did something. A presentation slide deck explains (generally) what you did to expose the idea to those who aren't familiar.

ZRDC 2026 Paper Submission Details

• Paper submission deadline is Monday, September 28, 2026 23:59 UTC. Submissions received after this date will not appear in the Proceedings.
• Submit papers via email to zrdcpapers@zeroretries.net
• Papers must be submitted as a .PDF format, with sufficient resolution for print publication. (Export or Save As… PDF).
• It is requested that ZRDC papers not use inline web hyperlinks. (Hyperlinks often do not persist through format changes.) In lieu of inline web hyperlinks, simply type out the full URL of the link. For longer URLs, please use footnotes with the full URL in the footnote.
• Papers will be published exactly as submitted.
• Paper authors retain all rights.
• Papers with multiple authors are encouraged.
• Papers are limited to 12 pages (letter-size).
• In addition to ZRDC archives, ZRDC technical papers will be archived for posterity in the Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications (DLARC), a project of the Internet Archive.

Technical paper topic areas include, but are not limited to digital radio, radio networking, mesh networks over radio, Software Defined Radio (SDR), digital voice/data systems, digital satellite communication, use of LoRa in Amateur Radio, digital signal processing (DSP), HF digital modes, Spectrum Management, Global Positioning System (GPS), Automatic Packet Reporting System (APRS), Linux in Amateur Radio, AX.25 and other protocols, mesh and peer-to-peer wireless networking, emergency and homeland defense backup digital communications in Amateur Radio.

Zero Retries is an independent newsletter promoting technological innovation that is occurring in Amateur Radio, and Amateur Radio as (literally) a license to experiment with and learn about radio technology. Radios are computers - with antennas! Zero Retries is now in its sixth year of publication, with over 3500 subscribers.

The latest information on ZRDC 2026 will be maintained at https://www.zeroretries.org/p/conference, or just click the Conference link on the top bar of the Zero Retries web page (https://www.zeroretries.org/).

Source: Zero Retries Digital Conference

The following is a message from Josef (OE3JJS):

SDRoxide is a completely new project written in Rust, supporting many SDR interfaces (CAT/Audio, CAT/IQ, SoapySDR, HPSDR, TCI) and with loads of features built in that used to require extra programs: FT8/FT4, SSTV, RTTY, PSK, OLIVIA, THOR, FSQ, a CW/RTTY/PSK skimmer, there's dx cluster and sota/pota spotting, a logbook with integrations for QRZ.com, HamQTH, eQSL, LoTW, there's neural-network noise reduction, a 3D "hamclock" that visualizes QSOs, satellites, Aurora, CME cones, with up-to-date images of the sun's surface, and you can run the client locally, remote with native binary, or remote via the web (WASM).

Future plans include a TCI Server (so it can act as a Anything-to-TCI bridge for example), Hellschreiber, and eventually digital voice modes for HF.

The current version is v0.5.0, the project is open source and is looking for testers on Windows and Mac.

A powerful SDR transceiver client with a GPU panadapter, dual VFOs, neural noise reduction, built-in skimmers, a full stack of digital modes and a live 3D space-weather globe — wrapped in a cyberpunk interface and running native on Linux, macOS & Windows, or streamed to any browser.

Source: SDRoxide