John Heartney

President’s Letter August 2026 August started with the Berryville Hamfest. There was a fairly good turnout despite the rain. Theresa, KG4TVM and I saw a number of OVH club members including Rob, KR4EEV; Byron, AK4XR; and Mark, WA4KFZ. See the photograph below. We will have an OVH VE session on August 15, 2026. Setup will begin at 8:00 am and the exam session will start at 8:30 am. The location is Chantilly Regional Library, 4000 Stringfellow Rd, Chantilly, VA 20151. There will be a memorial service for Ken Brant’s wife Paula, on Saturday August 15, 2026, at 1:00 pm. The memorial will be held at the Lord of Life Lutheran Church, 5114 Twinbrook Rd. Fairfax, VA 22032. All OVH members are welcome to attend the memorial. We have the Willing … Read more >>

President’s Letter July 2026 The OVH had a great June with a successful Hamfest and successful Field day the next weekend. Theresa, KG4TVM, chaired our successful Hamfest; we have not had a Hamfest in several years and instead having tailgates. We had good attendance, good table sales and good outside tailgate participation. Importantly, we made enough money to get us through 2026. A huge thanks to all who made this possible. We approached Field Day with a dreadful weather forecast. However, we had very little rain on Saturday and only a shower on Sunday which quit in time for us to take down the antenna without being soaked. George, K4GVT, setup his satellite system and made 13 or so contacts. One negative was that our balloon launch was cancelled because … Read more >>

The weather forecast predicted rain all day Saturday and Sunday. However, it did not rain on Saturday and we only got a few hours of rain on Sunday. Although we had no rain on Saturday it was very cloudy and we had to cancel the the balloon launch because the radio package would pick up cloud moisture.  Also, with the clouds, we did not put up solar panels. We had a lot of OVH members turn out: Theresa, KG4TVM; Byron, AK4XR; George, K4GVT; Wayne, AG4ZZ; Gene, N4HFW; Jay NQ4T; John, KG4NXT;  Butch, W4HJL; Paul, W4ZB; Lillian, KK4WX; Gil, KM4OZH; Mark, WA4KFZ; Scott, KR4BNF and Bruce, KN4GDX. We had many guests this year and the most distinguished guest was George Stewart who is the new Gainesville supervisor. He also visited Heritage … Read more >>

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 … 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 … 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 … Read more >>

Gene, N4HFW, shares a picture of his shack from the early 2000’s. 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.