John Heartney

As we know, Steve, N4OGR because a silent key because of Covid 19.  Covid also shut down the club’s fundraising.   We established a Steve Frick scholarship funded by personal donations.  The fund raised over $4,000.00, which will be awarded to two recipients this year and next year.  Some of the donations came from the square dancers in the club that Steve and Jan, KE4TMW belonged to.  To memorialize Steve and the scholarship fund, George, K4GVT donated a very nice blank plaque. George has recently retired and is starting an engraving business. George did the engraving, which consisted of a separate engraving job for each donor and another engraving job for the top of the plaque. There is also a photo of Steve at the top of the plaque. Jan is … Read more >>

I want to extend my thanks and gratitude to the following ham radio operators – John O’Mara, W4NF; Mike Trowbridge, KA4RRU; John Elgin, WA3MNN and Stuart Mitchell, WAODJY.   My dear husband Mark Woodruff, N3HF, passed away in August, 2019.  These men have spent countless hours breaking down Mark’s ham station, going through many boxes of equipment, checking the equipment to make sure it still worked, removing antennas from the house and tower and then finally taking the tower down.  W4NF was instrumental in selling most of the equipment to other hams, locally and across the country.  WA3MNN is a friend of Mark’s who spent a lot of time traveling to help with all these endeavors.  Additionally, he and John Creel, WB3GXW are maintaining the N3HF repeater in Silver Spring, … Read more >>

Last year,  NOVEC rearranged  the ac power feed to our repeaters hosted at their Lomond Drive location.    When lightning stuck the NOVEC tower next to our repeater shack, some of our equipment was damaged.  Here is the damage that Ken, KE2N found : The D-STAR gateway computer had failed (power supply) The mini-PC we were using for 224.66 Asterisk had failed (judged not repairable) The USB audio interface for 224.66 had failed The aux port on the 224.66 repeater had failed. The existing ac power surge arrester (20+ years old) had both of its “healthy” lamps off Ken found the reasons for why we suffered lightning damage: What I observed was that NOVEC had re-arranged our power feed since my last visit.  The feeder cable (previously underground) was now … Read more >>

On April 16th and 17th,  OVH members supported the Old Dominion Equestrian Endurance race near Strasbourg and the West Virginia line.  The OVH members helping were  Gil, KM4OZH; Duane,  KK4BZ;  Mark,  WA4KFZ and John, KG4NXT.   Net control was Ed, KE4RL and other hams assisting were Zoe, KG4TAM; Tom, KN4UNR and Neil, KE2LEY.  Frank, WB1USN was assistant net control. The event consisted of a 50 mile race,  a 30 mile race and a Ride and Tie race (RT).  The RT event had a team of 2 humans and one horse.  One person rode the horse and the other ran.   At various points,  the horse/human team pulled ahead and tied the horse to a tree.  When  the second person caught up, she got on the horse.  Meanwhile, the first person then became … Read more >>

After a pause of about 10 years, OVH operated Winter Field Day at a cabin in Shenandoah River State Park, which qualified us for a bonus of 1,500 points. OVH members participating included Don, WA2SWX; Theresa, KG4TVM; Jimmy, WD4OJY; Cat, KM4PBD; Ron, K3FR; Gil, KM4OZH; Duane, KK4BZ and John, KG4NXT. Al, KB4BHB tried to reach us on 40m phone, but we could not hear him and he could not hear us. Most of the contacts were made on 40m phone and 20m CW. Don and Ron were the CW operators. Don was an intercept operator in a former life. Ron brought a cootie key and did 40m CW. We were using the N3FJP logging software for Winter Field Day and the two laptops were connected by an ethernet cable. The … Read more >>

The Finance Committee and the OVH Board have created and approved a 2021 Scholarship in the name of Steve Frick, N4OGR. In light of our lack of income due to COVID, this scholarship will be funded primarily from contributions. Art, W1CRO has seeded the Steve Frick scholarship with a $500 pledge. The OVH will fund $100. We need you to fund the rest. The donation period ended Febuary 15, 2021. Thank you for your donations.

We had our annual OVH holiday party at Yorkshire restaurant on Dec 6.   Because of the virus, we wore masks when not eating.  In addition. the restaurant had blocked off every other table to help with social distancing.  We had the usual ham, turkey and venison chili for the main dish.  This year the venison was provided by Gil, KM4OZH, who had shot a 10 point buck.   There were a number of side dishes and desserts brought by OVH members. As usual, we also collected toys for tots.  Several members that could not attend provided toys including Gene, N4HFN; Wayne, N4HCR; Sandy, KM4OZH; Ray, KM4EKR and Al, KB4BHB.   We had two marines come to eat dinner and collect the toys for the toys for tots programs. There was a brief … Read more >>