John Heartney

James Morris wins Fox Hunt

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James Morris with the fox he found

At the 2019 OVH field day,   Cat, KM4PBD,  ran the fox hunt as the educational activity.   Cat was the fox hunt winner in 2018.    There were five 440 M yagis available which had been constructed by Gil, KM4OZH.   Each of the yagis was put to use by fox hunters.  One of the fox hunters was our guest Lee J. Carter,  member of the Virginia House of Delegates, 50th District.

The fox hunters started from the park pavillion and their first job was to find Cat, who then gave them the fox’s frequency.    The fox hunt was won by young James Morris, who is the son of David Morris, KK4ZUU.

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New Field Day Loggers

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The old XP loggers are gone ! We now have windows 10 laptops with solid state drives and the latest N3FJP field day software. This is being done at no cost to the club. Jim O’Rourke, KM4SXM, donated the first laptop. John, KG4NXT, donated the second one. Don, WA2SWX, donated 3 laptops. Our club has a comprehensive license on the N3FJP software so that was updated at no cost.

New Antenna for 146.97 repeater

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Byron on tippy toes but with safety harness on and attached

Our repeater committee decided to replace the 2 meter repeater antenna to fix the noise problems that have occured when there is a lot of precipitation.  Ken, KE2N, had run a separate transmit antenna and the results appear to validate the theory that the antenna was the problem. When the new antenna arrived, it was decided to do an immediate installation because of national weather service warnings of a storm the next day.   With only a few hours notice,  Ken had a team of 4 club members :  Byron, AK4XR,  Gil, KM4OZH, John,  KG4NXT,  and Ken himself.    The team arrived and installed the antenna without notable problems.   Byron ,who learned safe tower climbing in Iraq,   climbed the tower and installed the antenna with the rest of the team as … Read more >>

New W4OVH Repeater Trustee

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Wayne Phillips N7QLK

Wayne Phillips, N7QLK,  is our new W4OVH repeater trustee. We thank Stu, W4PR, for his able service as our previous repeater trustee. As the repeater trustee, Wayne is the ‘chief control operator’ and can appoint and fire control operators for our repeaters. In addition, if you want to use the club call W4OVH at a special event or otherwise, you need to get Wayne’s approval. Thanks Wayne.

Virginia QSO Party presentation

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Gil with 80 M mobile for VAQP

VIRGINIA QSO PARTY PRESENTATION

At our February meeting,  Jeff, WB6UIE, presented slides about the upcoming Virginia QSO party.   The slides were not so clear as projected so we are including them in this link  Presentation 
We host the QSO party awards at out hamfest.   More information on the QSO party can be found on the event calendar on this web site for March 16, 2019. Read more >>

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 >>