On May 8, 2021, OVH held a VE session at the Nokesville Community Park. Our Volunteer Examiners were Al, KB4BHB; Ken, KN4DD; Mark, WA4KFZ; Tony, KM4KLB; Ray, KM4EKR; George, K4GVT and John, KG4NXT. Additionally, OVH members Theresa, KG4TVM and Eric, KO4MBI came to the session to assist. All 6 of the applicants earned a new license. There are 5 new Technician licensees and one new General, OVH’s own Harry Zint, KN4IJY. One new twist for this VE session was that all of the applicants had to have an FRN (FCC Registration Number) before testing. You can no longer come to the VE session with just a social security number. Surprisingly, all applicants came with an FRN. Ken, KN4DD was prepared to apply on-line for any applicant that arrived without an FRN, but he had no takers. As most of us… Read more »

As we know, Steve, N4OGR because a silent key because of Covid 19.  Covid also shut down the club’s fundraising.   We established a Steve Frick scholarship funded by personal donations.  The fund raised over $4,000.00, which will be awarded to two recipients this year and next year.  Some of the donations came from the square dancers in the club that Steve and Jan, KE4TMW belonged to.  To memorialize Steve and the scholarship fund, George, K4GVT donated a very nice blank plaque. George has recently retired and is starting an engraving business. George did the engraving, which consisted of a separate engraving job for each donor and another engraving job for the top of the plaque. There is also a photo of Steve at the top of the plaque. Jan is Steve’s widow and was unaware of the plaque.  OVH members… Read more »

I want to extend my thanks and gratitude to the following ham radio operators – John O’Mara, W4NF; Mike Trowbridge, KA4RRU; John Elgin, WA3MNN and Stuart Mitchell, WAODJY.   My dear husband Mark Woodruff, N3HF, passed away in August, 2019.  These men have spent countless hours breaking down Mark’s ham station, going through many boxes of equipment, checking the equipment to make sure it still worked, removing antennas from the house and tower and then finally taking the tower down.  W4NF was instrumental in selling most of the equipment to other hams, locally and across the country.  WA3MNN is a friend of Mark’s who spent a lot of time traveling to help with all these endeavors.  Additionally, he and John Creel, WB3GXW are maintaining the N3HF repeater in Silver Spring, Maryland.  The other N3HF repeater in Ocean City, Maryland is… Read more »

Last year,  NOVEC rearranged  the ac power feed to our repeaters hosted at their Lomond Drive location.    When lightning stuck the NOVEC tower next to our repeater shack, some of our equipment was damaged.  Here is the damage that Ken, KE2N found : The D-STAR gateway computer had failed (power supply) The mini-PC we were using for 224.66 Asterisk had failed (judged not repairable) The USB audio interface for 224.66 had failed The aux port on the 224.66 repeater had failed. The existing ac power surge arrester (20+ years old) had both of its “healthy” lamps off Ken found the reasons for why we suffered lightning damage: What I observed was that NOVEC had re-arranged our power feed since my last visit.  The feeder cable (previously underground) was now in a plastic conduit running in an overhead cable tray,… Read more »

On April 16th and 17th,  OVH members supported the Old Dominion Equestrian Endurance race near Strasbourg and the West Virginia line.  The OVH members helping were  Gil, KM4OZH; Duane,  KK4BZ;  Mark,  WA4KFZ and John, KG4NXT.   Net control was Ed, KE4RL and other hams assisting were Zoe, KG4TAM; Tom, KN4UNR and Neil, KE2LEY.  Frank, WB1USN was assistant net control. The event consisted of a 50 mile race,  a 30 mile race and a Ride and Tie race (RT).  The RT event had a team of 2 humans and one horse.  One person rode the horse and the other ran.   At various points,  the horse/human team pulled ahead and tied the horse to a tree.  When  the second person caught up, she got on the horse.  Meanwhile, the first person then became the runner. Most of the communication was on a 2… Read more »