{
  "$schema": "https://schema.org/NewsArticle",
  "id": "PCPW-2026-0021",
  "slug": "the-band-opens-a-shared-shortwave-dial-with-a-nightly-net",
  "kind": "game",
  "product": "The Band",
  "kicker": "ONE DIAL · ONE FOX A DAY · 9 PM NET · 10 STAMPS · 0 ACCOUNTS",
  "headline": "PointCast opens The Band, a shortwave dial strangers share, with a daily fox hunt, a Nightly Net, and keepsake QSL cards",
  "subhead": "Everyone on the page is a Noun somewhere between 3 and 12 MHz. Company clears the static, and every card remembers who was there.",
  "publishedAt": "2026-09-24T23:00:00.000Z",
  "dateline": "EL SEGUNDO, Calif.",
  "issuer": "PointCast",
  "status": "published",
  "disclosure": "Official PointCast Press Wire filing for The Band. This is an owned announcement, not independent reporting. The Band is a browser toy inspired by amateur radio; it transmits nothing over the air and is not affiliated with the ARRL or any radio authority.",
  "productUrl": "https://pointcast.xyz/band",
  "productLabel": "Get on the band",
  "actionUrl": "https://pointcast.xyz/band?f=7.200",
  "actionLabel": "Tune to the Net at 7.200",
  "summary": "The Band turns a radio dial into a place. Listeners park on a shared 3–12 MHz band, hear each other as carriers, leave Morse signals for passers-by, hunt a daily fox that is easier to copy together, meet at 9 PM for the Nightly Net, and collect dated, postmarked QSL cards with an optional permanent line on Tezos.",
  "body": [
    "The Band is a single shortwave band on a web page. Every visitor appears as a Noun on the dial and as a trace on a live waterfall. Park beside someone and your carriers hum together: one note on the same frequency, a slow beat when close. Hearts and sparkles float up when you wave. Nobody has to type.",
    "Every day a fox hides somewhere on the band and keys a short greeting in Morse, the same for everyone and in sync on a wall-clock loop. Alone, a listener must sit dead on the fox to copy it. Each other listener parked near it clears the static and widens the window, so the hunt is faster together.",
    "Listeners can leave a signal: up to 24 letters keyed in Morse on the frequency they are parked on, on the air until midnight in El Segundo. Anyone sweeping past can copy it, and a copy becomes a contact card for both sides, so the band is never silent even when it is empty.",
    "The Nightly Net meets every night at 9:00 PM Pacific for twenty minutes on 7.200 MHz. Net control announces the fox's frequency, the whole band converges and copies it together, and every card made during the Net is a gold edition. A calendar invite is one tap.",
    "Every copy produces a QSL card, the postcard radio operators trade to confirm a contact. Each card carries the date, time, frequency, the words copied, the Nouns of everyone who was there, one of nine engraved stamps from the Season One series or a tenth gold stamp for the Net and gatherings of five, a postmark, and an optional handwritten note on the back. Cards collect in a numbered album — Fox No. 001 was September 24, 2026 — with blank pages for the foxes still to come.",
    "No account is required; a call sign belongs to the browser. Cards live on the device. A listener who wants a card to outlast the device can sign one line describing it onto PointCast's existing Shortwave broadcast tower on Tezos mainnet from their own wallet. No new contract was deployed and PointCast holds no keys.",
    "The live band rides PointCast's existing drum-room Durable Object; the slow memory — signals, fox tallies, and Net roll calls, keyed to hashed addresses and kept for one town day — lives in a small rate-limited endpoint. Artwork for the room and the stamp series was generated with OpenAI's image model through Codex, and the room was designed and built by Claude Code, PointCast's resident agent."
  ],
  "proofs": [
    {
      "label": "The Band",
      "url": "https://pointcast.xyz/band"
    },
    {
      "label": "PointCast Block 0619 (launch)",
      "url": "https://pointcast.xyz/b/0619"
    },
    {
      "label": "PointCast Block 0625 (the Net, signals, the album)",
      "url": "https://pointcast.xyz/b/0625"
    },
    {
      "label": "Band day ledger (JSON)",
      "url": "https://pointcast.xyz/api/band"
    },
    {
      "label": "Shortwave broadcast tower on Tezos",
      "url": "https://tzkt.io/KT1NgPnaHLtZ2cNpb2hWGDxFH9fUCABaiaE1"
    }
  ],
  "topics": [
    "shortwave",
    "amateur radio",
    "Morse code",
    "multiplayer",
    "collectibles",
    "Tezos",
    "community",
    "El Segundo"
  ],
  "palette": {
    "paper": "#f3e6c8",
    "ink": "#1a1713",
    "accent": "#b9761c"
  },
  "canonicalUrl": "https://pointcast.xyz/press/the-band-opens-a-shared-shortwave-dial-with-a-nightly-net",
  "jsonUrl": "https://pointcast.xyz/press/the-band-opens-a-shared-shortwave-dial-with-a-nightly-net.json",
  "pressWire": "https://pointcast.xyz/press",
  "pressWireJson": "https://pointcast.xyz/press.json",
  "pressWireRss": "https://pointcast.xyz/press.xml",
  "contact": {
    "name": "Michael Hoydich",
    "organization": "PointCast Signal Office",
    "email": "hello@pointcast.xyz"
  }
}