When time marches across the world, it mostly begins the journey in New Zealand, because only Samoa is ahead of New Zealand by an hour.
Therefore, it is a great privilege for me to make braille real on the bands this year, to celebrate the 208th anniversary of the birth of Louis Braille, in France in 1809.
That is why I will be using the secondary callsign of ZL208BRL on the bands beginning appropriately on the 20th anniversary of the birth of Braille which occurs on 4 January, 2017.
These days, I do most of my New Zealand operating /ZL2 from ZL2TZE in Blenheim, but plan to have the call on the air as /W0 and /W8 when using remotes in Minnesota and Ohio respectively.
I know that many agencies may find interesting ways to publicise the event, but this is my personal desire to make a dot of difference.
Many believe Braille is dead, but while it largely hasn’t quite kept up with all the modern technology, I believe it is still very much relevant in the lives of people for whom it is a native reading and writing method.