VP – OVH July has been another busy month for the Ole Virginia Hams: OVH supported two Tri-It-Now events, one on July 4th and the other on July 27th. On July 17th, we saw the return of the OVH Breakfast. Last in this month’s roundup is the 13th Annual 13 Colonies Special Event. ***************************************************************************** The Return of the OVH Breakfast July 17th saw the return of The Ole Virginia Hams Breakfast @ Yorkshire Restaurant. Originally started by Former President Byron, AK4XR, this was the first OVH Breakfast since 3/14/20. It was good to see everyone again in person. We all had a nice time before breaking up and getting into our day. They are held on the Saturday before our Monthly Meeting @ 8 AM, so the next one will be August 14th, COVID permitting. Hope to see you there…. Read more »
VP – OVH Field day, like Gaul, is divided into three parts ( – with apologies to Julius Caesar) 1) setup 2) field day operation and 3) tear down and submitting the log files. The Setup June 25, 2021 was the day before the first day of Field Day. It was also “Setup Day”. As in some past years, we had a team out to shoot pull line in the trees which become support for field day antennas. Most years we do this with easy-ups and home made easy-up consisting of a sling shot and a fishing reel & weight. This year, we also had a drone dropping lines (George, K4GVT) and a very effective pneumatic launcher made by Jeff, K9VEG. There was no rain and the lines went up. Our infrastructure erectors included Byron, AK4XR; Jeff, WB4TT; Gil, KM4OZH; … Read more »
VP – OVH Sunday, June 27th, 2021 marked the return of the Manassas Mini Tri, and once again the Ole Virginia Hams provided communications support and acted as spotters. Andy, KJ4MTP was our coordinator at the event, which was held once again at The Freedom Aquatic & Fitness Center, Manassas, VA. Scheduled to start at 8:15 AM, Andy wanted us there no later than 7:30 AM for our assignments and actual positioning. To get us there on time, Andy bribed us with donuts, but to be fair, he made us bring our own coffee. Oh well. We did not have a full compliment however, so some Check Points went unmanned. Be that as it may, the Prince William County Police provided a very robust presence. There were five patrol cars each with officers where I was stationed, on Freedom Center… Read more »
VP – OVH With the weekend behind us, it is time to look back at our Tailgate Party 2021. If this event had a motto, it probably would have been Semper Gumby (Always Flexible). The planning committee had to work around the coronavirus restrictions for places to have our event and to even have in person meetings. But we powered through. The week of the event was an eventful one weatherwise. The days immediately before the event were rain soaked. But we adapted. There was a great deal of planning by many individuals before the event and as you would expect, on the day of the event, real life happened. We thought we were onto something with our event, because of the level of interest we generated before the event: webpage comments, emails and even phone calls. Our flyer said… Read more »
VP – OVH After months of planning, three planning meetings (one virtual and two in person) Ole Virginia Hams finally held its first Tailgate Party. I wanted to share with you the amount of work that went into this event and to acknowledge the incredible amount of effort of the planning and implementation crews. From the Tailgate event planning committee, we would like to recognize the following people: With John, KG4NXT; Theresa, KG4TVM; Sandy, KM4JUS; Ray, KM4EKR; Don, WA2SWX; Ken, KN4DD; Ron, K3FR; Tony, KM4KLB & Gil, KM4OZH. We would especially like to recognize Tony for the amount of effort he put into planning the layout of our Tailgate Party. Below, I have capsulized Tony’s nine page project plan in PDF format. I think this one page demonstrates the incredible amount of detail he put into his work. However,… Read more »
June 12, 2021 from 8 AM – 2 PM on the lot located on Signal View Drive across the street from Signal Hill Park.
Click here to download our Tailgate flyer
Talk-in will be on 146.970 ( – offset – tone 100)
The flyer now includes a map and parking information.
On October 27th, OVH once again stepped up for the community and donated 9 more computers. This brings our total to 20 usable computers donated. We are not counting the 4 donated laptops that were unusable and gifted to eAsset Solutions Computer and Electronics Recycling of Falls Church. A reminder: 11 laptops were donated by OVH to Gracing Spaces (https://www.gracingspaces.com) on August 31. They, in turn, presented those computers to Fairfax County Social Services for use by the children in their shelters. With regard to this round, seven of those nine computers were laptops. We would like to recognize Art, W1CRO; Butch, W4HJL; AL, KB4BHB; and John, KG4NXT for those laptops. The remaining two computers were Windows 10 desktop machines. Theresa, KG4TVM “re-gifted” these two machines after acquiring them from a friend. After taking delivery of the nine devices from… Read more »
The year 2020 has been one strange year. There’ve been times when I thought “up” must be “down” and “left” must be “right”. This is the only way I (“The Other Ken” – KN4DD) could explain to myself how a mostly respiratory disease could cause toilet paper, frozen pizza and bread yeast shortages. And, as I would soon find out, laptop shortages. When I received a broadcast email from John (KG4NXT) back on August 22, asking for ideas on what to do with newly retired XP laptops, I didn’t think I could help. At first, all I could offer was this: maybe some recycler would offer money for the scrap. And so, with the trap set, John sprung it. Would you look into this please? Based on what turned out to be an outdated memory, I agreed. I had remembered… Read more »