John Heartney

OVH at Frostfest

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Frostfest 2019

Very early on ground hog day, OVH members manned a table at Frostfest in Richmond. The purpose was to distribute hamfest flyers and spread the word of our new location at the Manassas Park Community Center and the new date of Saturday June 15. We had many takers on the flyers. Many people were happy we moved the hamfest to Saturday. In addition, Don, WA2SWX and Theresa, KG4TVM worked the vendors at hamfest. One was happy to learn that the hamfest paypal links on our website are now live and was going to purchase a table right after frostfest. The table was also manned by John , KG4NXT and Jeff, K9VE, distributed flyers on the floor. Stu, W4PR, loaned us a badly needed chair when we discovered that Frostfest tables … Read more >>

Presidents Letter

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Presidents Letter: I hope everyone enjoyed the holidays and is recovered from all the festivities. We tend to overdo it so if you are like my family, you were probably looking forward to going back to work or school. It being a new year I want to remind you to send in your membership dues. It completely slipped my mind and I just recently sent them in. I also wanted to mention that elections are coming up next month and you need to be a paid member to vote or to run for office. Since I am also the Field Day chairman I wanted to mention that we will be holding our planning meetings starting next month. Check on the reflector for the upcoming meeting dates. We already have our … Read more >>

Awards given at OVH Holiday Party

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Ellis getting Award

At the popular OVH holiday party,  the club gave out several awards.  There were several people getting awards who did not make the party.  These awards will be given out at the January meeting.   Awards given at the party were: Steve Frick N4OGR LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD Al Dugas KB4BHB LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD Jay Moore NQT4 CERTIFICATE OF  RECOGNITION Wayne Phillips N7QLK HALF MARATHON CHAIRMAN shirt (custom embroidered) Don Meyerhoff WA2SWX Large bottle of Ginger Wine for taking on Treasurer and Hamfest Chair John Heartney KG4NXT VE shirt for being VE liaison Yorkshire Restaurant Certificate of Appreciation There were also lots of toys for tots donated.      

OVH Trailer gets a tarp

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OVH Trailer Tarp

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.

Repeater upgrades

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Ken attaches N connector to hardline

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 >>

Help Fund The Club With Amazon Smile

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amazon smile logo

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 >>

JOTA – Jamboree on the air

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Camp Synder JOTA tent 1

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.

HALF MARATHON

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Net controls Eric (KN4PJL) , Chick (KC1PIA) , Wayne (N7QLK)

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 >>