Club News

VP’s Corner

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VP’s Corner Jeff Fuller WB6UIE This month we’ll explore what has become one of amateur radio’s hottest high tech topics – Software Defined Radio, or SDR. SDR works by sampling the radio frequency spectrum and turning those samples into a stream of bits.  Sounds simple, but it takes quite a bit of computing horsepower to do so in real time.  Seems like just a few years ago in grad school when this was a computer exercise (submitted on punched cards) and actual SDR was just a pipe dream. Today, with the addition of a digitizer and software, you can have your own SDR running on a PC.  Here’s a short You Tube video covering SDR basics You can listen to a variety of SDRs from around the world via http://websdr.org/  Cascade your sound card’s output to Fldigi to demodulate digital … Read more >>

Become “Radio Active” in 2018

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Its 2018 and the Ole Virginia Hams want to help you start the New Year off right by helping you  join an exciting hobby and technology venue by helping you both learn and test for your own Amateur Radio Technician Class License.

The W4OVH club will continue our offering of free Technician Class license preparation courses starting on January 29th at 7PM. There will be a total of 8 weekly sessions of 1 hour each.

This year we are introducing new innovations to the course delivery. The course will be conducted by video teleconference so that you have the convenience of attending from your computer at home.

We have class availability for 9 students using this format.

The specific class schedule and dates beyond the start date of 29 January will be added to the club event calendar when finalized.

Please contact Mark Braunstein, WA4KFZ, direct if you are interested at wa4kfz@cox.net

Lifetime Achievement Awards – W1CRO and W4HJL

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During the Year End Party, Lifetime Achievement Awards were shown to everyone that go to Art, W1CRO, and Butch, W4HJL, still very active with the club (both are OVH Directors).  Because neither was able to attend the party on December 10th, We took the party to them! On Tuesday night, December 12th, Bob, W4HJF, Terry, KC4DV, Paul, W4ZB, Ray, KM4EKR, Sandy, KM4JUS, John, KG4NXT and Theresa, KG4TVM all drove over to visit Butch, recuperating at home to deliver his award.  It was great to see him at home after his recent adventures in the hospital.  On Wednesday, December 13th, Terry, Ray, Sandy, John and Theresa drove to Arthur’s home to visit and deliver his award.  It was wonderful to Arthur and Joyce too. Butch and Art’s participation, leadership, expertise, friendship, etc. … Read more >>

OVH 2017 Christmas / Holiday Party

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W4OVH’s annual year end Christmas / Holiday party was held on Sunday, December 10th at the Yorkshire restaurant in Manassas.   The turnout was wonderful, the donations to Toys For Tots was outstanding, and the fellowship amazing! The food – well just WOW on that.  No one there went away hungry. OVH wants to thank its members for their donations to Toys For Tots.  Thanks to the United States Marine Corp for sending two of their best to attend, Sgt. Tucker Renckert and Lance Corporal Sydney Ally, and they did not leave our party hungry! Pinky, OVH’s mascot attended the party too and she has some words of her own!  (see separate  post). Also during the Year End party, Lifetime Achievement Awards were shown to everyone that go to Butch, W4HJL, … Read more >>

OVH Supports Manassas Christmas Parade

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Saturday, December 2nd was a grey, cold day in Manassas but the energy was electric. The 72nd annual Greater Manassas Christmas Parade kicked off at 10 am. OVH club members came out to provide radio communications along the parade route. Also the club trailer was entered in the parade as a participant. Terry KC4DV pulled the trailer thru the parade with his truck. BUT before he could do that, we had to decorate! The Saturday prior to the parade Terry, Ray, Sandy, John and myself went to the utility yard to hang the Christmas lights on the trailer. Then the morning of the parade Terry, Rosalie and I finish decorating in the staging area. Pinky road shotgun in the truck during the parade waving the entire time. Seeing all the … Read more >>

DStar Roundtable

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Following the 8pm Thursday night net on Dec 14,  we had a DStar roundtable on the W4OVH 2M  DStar repeater.   This was a good opportunity to use DStar radios , find out what was happening with the repeater and make suggestions.   The following stations participated:  Jeff KM4FTK, Ken K1KDA, Ken KE2N,  Jeff KJ4MTP,  Joe KI4OHR, Bill N4SV and Mark WA4KFZ.   We saw Baofang KK4JFK on the DStar radio screen but were unable to get any audio.  We understand she is new to DStar and still configuring her radio. The DStar repeater news was that the linking capability to reflectors has been tested and works on all DStar reflectors (REF prefix).   There are some reflectors (  DCS and XRF prefix) that it does not work on.  The technical committee is working … Read more >>

Presidents Letter

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Presidents Letter: Greetings one and all, I hope everyone is getting into the holiday season in their own way. For those who missed the holiday party, we had a lot of fun. We had a good turnout. First of all, I want to say thanks to Theresa, KG4TVM, for once again putting on a great event. The food was great and the company even better. Thanks to Sgt Tucker Renckert and Lance Corporal Sydney Ally coming on behalf of Toys-For-Tots. Thank you for your service. Just to stop all of the rumors, yes it is true that Pinkie the Pig does exists. From random sighting to appearing in the Manassas parade, it became clear that the myth is a reality. To reinforce this, Pinkie surprised us at the party. What … Read more >>

PINKIE’S CORNER

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Pinkie on Throne

Pinkie Pig here again!  The holidays are upon us, and it’s time to spread good cheer! Everyone had a wonderful time at our Christmas party.  The food was great – we all pigged out.  Theresa did her usual bang-up job of organizing everything!   We collected a load of toys for the tots.  Awards were given out, and I got to have my picture taken with the Marines!  I was tickled pink!  I got to mingle and ham it up!  Who knew there were so many pig lovers! We all had a lot of laughs, and I had a good chuckle over the poor fellow sitting at the bar in the other room who looked over and thought he saw a large pink pig! Peaches wanted to stay home, watch Pippa … Read more >>