Month: October 2020

Antenna Party for Butch, W4HJL

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tower near the ground with Al KB4HB, Bob W4HJF, George K4GVT and Gil KM4OZH supervising

On October 20, 2020,  the OVH had an antenna party for Butch, W4HJL.   Butch has a crank down tower at his house.   On the agenda:  1) replace the rotor because control box no longer displayed direction; 2) some of the beam elements were not in same plane as the rest – straighten them; 3) add a 6 meter beam to the antenna.    The crew consisted of Gil, KM4OZH;  George, K4GVT;   George’s brother in law, Tom Schweinfurth, Dick, WN7S; Al, KB4BHB;  Bob, W4HJF and John, KG4NXT.    Butch, W4HJL, cooked us all a fine lunch.    The replacement rotor did not have mounting holes in the right place so the decision was to field repair the old rotor and grease it up.   The field repair was handled most ably by … Read more >>

Scouts On The Air

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Ken KN4DD sets up a 2 meter contact for a scout

On Saturday, October 17, OVH ran Jamboree-on-the-Air (or JOTA) at Camp Snyder in Haymarket, VA.  One of our members , ROB (W4FSK) was our liaison with the scout camp and was also in charge of the camp that day.  We had a troop of boys, a second one of girls and a third troop of Muslim boys. Rob estimates the OVH volunteers worked with about 50 scouts and their leaders, just at Camp Snyder. The scouts that made contacts were given signed contact cards that they can then use for partial credit for several merit badges. John (KG4NXT) brought his IC-7610 so we could have a digital station and both Al, (KB4BHB) and “The Other Ken” (KN4DD) brought their 2 meter mobile stations. The digital station ran FT8 and worked … Read more >>

VP’s Corner

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Cooler temperatures of fall will soon be here and, along with them, the beginning of the holiday season. I’m sure your family, like mine, has some holiday traditions which have been passed down over the years. We carry them on, not necessarily for practical reasons, but as a means of bonding and connecting with past generations. Learning to communicate using Morse code or “CW” is one such tradition in the amateur radio community. I’m happy to see several of our new hams accepting the challenge. Here are some interesting Morse factoids to encourage you in your studies. Q.  Why do hams call it CW? A.  CW stands for Continuous Wave, meaning a sine wave produced by an electronic oscillator. The first radio signals from spark transmitters were known as “damped … Read more >>

Junk in the Trunk

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Al KB4BHB, John KG4NXT, Don WA2SWX

On Saturday October 10, The Culpeper Amateur Radio Association (CARA) held their Junk in the Trunk. This was basically a tailgate only hamfest. The following OVH members are seen there: Don, WA2SWX;   Al, KB4BHB;   Theresa, KG4TVM;   John, KG4NXT;  Woody, N4MQ; Ron, K3FR &    Bill, AF4LL  was also there (Bill is a read-in member). The price of admission was more than reasonable – $5 per car, including cars with stuff to sell. We found the prices to be lower than we expected and there was good stuff to buy. Just as importantly, people were taking Covid-19 precautions by wearing masks. If you do not see pictures below – click the title above