John Heartney

On the last day of May, Theresa/KG4TVM called for a OVH club POTA activation at Manassas National Battlefield Park. There is only one area for POTA at the park, the Groveton Road picnic area. It has a shelter and bathrooms but the trees are puny. We used a hot spot provided by Byron/AK4XR for spotting ourselves, using the POTA app on the web and for uploading the digital log. We had excellent weather and band conditions. We put up a vertical and George’s big ears antenna. OVH members attending were Theresa/KG4TVM, George/K4GVT, Bruce/KG4GDX,  Rob/KR4EEV, Ken/KD4VA and John/KG4NXT. George set up a sideband station and John set up a digital station. John and Rob made 16 contacts and George made 15. A good time was had by all.       … Read more >>

Hamvention to hams is like Mecca to Muslims and you should make the trip at least once. Back in 2003, I asked Theresa/KG4TVM if she wanted to honeymoon at Hamvention and she said no, but this year it was a birthday present from Theresa to me. We stayed at a state park cabin about 30 miles away from Hamvention at a place called Cowan Lake State Park. We arrived a day early and activated the park and nearby wildlife area for POTA. We did not park at Hamvention and instead parked at the high school and rode a school bus to the site. Interestingly, the town cancels school for Hamvention, so there was an abundance of parking and numerous perky high school students. Hamvention is a huge event and there … Read more >>

President’s Letter – May 2026 I was not at the last OVH meeting because it was election day and I am an assistant chief election officer at Buckhall UMC. I am very pleased that Jason/K4APR was able to present on his Radio Packet Network with audio/visual assistance from Byron/AK4XR. This coming May OVH meeting, we will have Scott/KE4WMF presenting. Scott is a competitor in the same class as our own Gil/KM4OZH.   Scott has a car with an impressive Antenna Farm on it. Scott will be presenting on what is in his car and how it evolved. The picture below is Scott’s contest car. The Virginia QSO party has posted (not quite final) scores and Gil has 74,420 points. This puts him at the top of the Rover category and in … Read more >>

Gene/N4HFW shares a picture of his shack from the early 2000s. Gene introduced the OVH to the horizontal loop for field day and had one in his back yard fed with balanced line. In the picture, you can see both a balanced line tuner and a coax tuner. Gene has fond memories of code keys, a paddle and a straight  key. They are shown above the transceiver. You also see a trusty Alpha amp on the right. For a larger picture, click on the image. If you would like your old shack picture featured, contact John/KG4NXT.

President’s Letter – April 2026 Welcome to spring !  As it gets warmer, we get closer to our two big events of the OVH year:  Hamfest and Field day.   As you all know,  Hamfest is our only fund raiser and we got bills to pay. For the first time, we are having Hamfest at Colgan High School which has loads of parking. We are having a combined Hamfest and Field day planning meeting on Monday April 27 at Hog Shack 10470 Dumfries Road, Manassas, VA at 6 pm.   Please come and help us with these events. We have been working on publicizing our hamfest by distributing flyers at the  Middle Peninsula hamfest,  the Vienna Hamfest and Thawfest Hamfest.  Here is George K4GVT at our table at Junk in the Trunk: … Read more >>