This weekend, May 9, 2026, there’s a fun and unusual radio event… the “Annual Armed Forces Day.”

You will listen for certain military stations transmitting on non-ham bands (their times and frequencies are published in the link below), then you respond to them on the ham-band frequencies that they will specify, where they are listening.  You will notice many military call-signs don’t contain numbers, but some do.  Also note that military stations are always using Upper Sideband (USB), which gets fun when they are listening for you on 40-meters or 80-meters (LSB).

So dig out your manual and refresh on how to listen on one frequency and transmit on another, typically either using the radio’s Split function, or using VFO-A for one function (ie, receive) and VFO-B (for transmit, or vice versa).
https://www.dodmars.org/mars-comex-information-website/armed-forces-day

I did it last year, and it was kind of fun.
-Mike W1TKO