Been reminiscing about the great special event stations from the 90s - remember W5FDR during FDR's centennial, or the amazing Marconi anniversary stations? What special events are you guys working these days? I see some commemorative callsigns pop up but nothing seems to generate the excitement like the old days. Maybe I'm just not looking in the right places, but the ARRL special events page doesn't seem as active.

• Are the digital modes stealing thunder from traditional special events?
• Any upcoming anniversaries worth planning for?

I worked several Marconi 150th anniversary stations last January - N1W was particularly active and well-run. The difference now is that social media spreads the word faster than QST ever could, but there's also more competition for attention from POTA, contests, and digital modes.

Check out the NPOTA anniversary coming up! Also, many clubs now do smaller regional special events rather than the big national ones. Our state QSO party includes several special event callsigns each year, and they're quite popular with the local crowd.

You might enjoy some of the international special events - worked some fantastic stations during the recent Commonwealth Games celebrations and various European city anniversaries. The QSL cards are still beautiful, and many offer digital certificates too.