John Heartney 
As we know, the sun bleaches things. The OVH trailer and its decals are no exception. Therefore, we now have a reflective 9 mil tarp over the trailer. It should also reduce the heat in the trailer. The tarp was donated by John , KG4NXT. The tarp was installed by John , KG4NXT, and Al, KB4BHB. AL, KB4BHB paid for the installation supplies.
The 2 meter repeater had become very noisy several times after we have had a lot of rain. After testing for noise in the repeater shack, the technical committee decided the noise source was between the antenna and the outside of the repeater shack. Ken , KE2N, decided we should replace the generic LMR 400 coax with hardline. On December 3, 2018, an OVH team replaced the coax to both the 2 Meter and 440 antennas with 7/8 inch hardline. This hardline has a loss of only .7 db per 100 feet at 440 MHZ. Our climber was Byron AK4XR. Ken directed the operation and Gil , KMK4OZH and John KG4NXT assisted. We are hopeful that the noise will not return. In addition, the repeater receiver should … Read more >>
Our Treasurer Don, WA2SWX, has found a painless way to help the club: Amazon Smile. When setup, Amazon will donate a percentage of your purchases to OVH. There are two steps: 1) Add the OVH as your charity on your amazon account ; 2) When buying, buy on smile.amazon.com instead of www.amazon.com. Adding OVH as your Amazon Charity Click to add OVH as Amazon Smile Charity Getting your Amazon purchase to count and make a contribution There are several ways to get your purchase to count. The first is to simply get into amazon with the following URL http://smile.amazon.com One you succeed, you can make a bookmark and use that. If you go to www.amazon.com, your purchase will not count. You can tell that you are in Smile because your Amazon … Read more >>
On Saturday Oct 20, OVH members assisted with JOTA at Camp Snyder in Haymarket. On site members were Al, KB4BHB, Wayne, N7QLK, Megan Phillips (no call yet), Don, WA2SWX, Ron, N4RDZ (visiting from Seattle), Theresa, KG4TVM, Bruce, KN4GDX and John , KG4NXT. We also had club members contact our JOTA site and talk to our scouts on the air including David, KG4GIY, Charlie , W4YGI (using our repeater’s internet link from Lake Anna) , Ogre, N4OGR, and Jan, KE4TMW. At our next regular meeting, Rob, W4SFK , will present a JOTA report in more detail. If JOTA participant was missed, please contact John , KG4NXT, and a correction will be made.
On Sunday Sept 30, 2018, the OVH did communications support for the Prince William Half Marathon for the third time. This time the marathon had 1400 runners and also had 500 additional runners for a 5 k race. The 5 K race was a race within a race. They start after the Marathon runners had left and only did a portion of the course. The OVH was well represented by 18 members. Only one member did not show and that was because of illness. This represents almost 20% of the club. The event ran smoothly and was chaired by Wayne, N7QLK. The three net controls kept a white board of race progress. This included the current locations of 1st male runner, 1st female runner and the last runner. This helped … Read more >>
Ham radio divides the world into Maidenhead grids defined by latitude and Longitude. For example, Manassas is in grid square FM18. If you look up your own callsign in QRZ, you can find your grid square in the detail tab. ARRL is running a contest to see who can contact and confirm the most grid squares. This is done by confirming contacts via Logbook of the world. If you have confirmed contacts in LOTW this year, you will be ranked. OVH Member Jeff Fladling, KM4FTK, has been actively working this contest and now is ranked 10th in Virginia ! He has 776 unique grids confirmed and 3338 QSOS. Congratulations Jeff !!! The easiest way to accumulate grid squares is the new FT8 mode. If any one wants assistance … Read more >>
Jay Moore, NQ4T, has his antenna blown down in the windstorms of last spring and was unable to participate in the 13 colonies contest. Since then, he has put up a doublet and is back on the air with a vengeance. With 100 watts from an IC-7300, he has worked Oman on FT8 and Moscow on phone. Here is the link for a recording of his Moscow QSO. http://w4ovh.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/rz3ah.mp3 This is a picture of his new antenna.
The 13 Colonies special event is a contest for hams to contact special event stations in each of the 13 colonies. Appropriately, the contest ran from July 1 to July 7 , which includes Independence Day. Each state has a special 1 by 1 call. For example, Virginia was K2B. The idea is to contact all 13 stations for a ‘sweep’. The contest is on all bands and all modes. This was the 10th year the contest has run. For the Olde Virginia Hams, the first known sweep was by Gil KM4OZH, who finished his in two days. Other OVH members participating were Al, KB4BHB, Wayne , N7QLK, John, KG4NXT, and David, KK4ZUU. If any one was missed, contact KG4NXT and we will correct the web article. We should … Read more >>