Sunshine Corner October

SUNSHINE CORNER Happy birthday wishes to Terry WA5NTI, Doc W1IMX, Robert KK4MXU, Simon KB3QOA, Ray KM4EKR, Scott KB8NUM, Ruth KU4WH, Keith KM4AA and Phil AC4PL. Sending sunshine and continued best wishes to Butch W4HJL, George K4GVT and Jeff WB4TT, all three are recovering from hospital stays. Freedom Center Mini-Tri on Sunday, October 22nd, please contact Andy KJ4MTP if you can help, this is a fun event and it’s run very efficiently Congratulations to the club for providing radio communications for The Prince William Half-Marathon that was held on October 1st,. Thanks to those that answered the call to help. Special thanks to Wayne N7QLK for chairing this event and making sure the course was covered. Even though the year is starting to wind down there are still many activities going … Read more >>

VP’s Corner

VP’s Corner Jeff Fuller WB6UIE How many of you have mentioned your amateur radio hobby to family and friends? If so, I’ll bet you’ve heard comments like “Does anyone still do that?”, and “That’s so out of date. Everyone has cell phones and Internet now.” Well … if you’ve been following the news about the hurricane aftermath in Puerto Rico, you’ll know that two weeks after the storm most of the power is still out and less than 30 percent of the cellular network is working. The Red Cross went directly to ARRL and requested a deployment of 50 hams with equipment to support the relief effort. That “Force of Fifty” is now in place and providing communications support for hospitals and other key nodes [1]. So …keep those batteries … Read more >>

Sunshine Corner September

SUNSHINE CORNER Happy birthday wishes to Gus N4MLE, Al KB4BHB, Maury W4HYB, Ron N4RDZ, Gary WG4ARC, Mark WA4KFZ, Steve WB0AOD, and Jim W4HJH. Hope you all had a great day! Continued best wishes to Butch W4HJL who is now home recovering from his surgery Best wishes to Art W1CRO who landed in the hospital for a few days but is also back home Please keep Wayne N7QLK & family in your thoughts, his father isn’t doing well Had a great time at the Quantico triathlon on August 26th, the course was on the base, we had a good show of club members providing communications. Thank you to the organizers and club members Congratulations to Terry KC4DV on a successful special event in South Carolina during the eclipse Freedom Center Mini-Tri … Read more >>

VP’s Corner

VP’s Corner Jeff Fuller WB6UIE Many thanks to Rob Saul,KK4MXU, and the crew of Buckhall Volunteer Firestation for offering the use of their Training Room for our new OVH monthly meeting site. Our next meeting will be on Tuesday 19 Sept at 1930 local. A map and imagery are shown here. Please use the guest parking area at the front of the station (near the flag pole).    Since this month is National Emergency Preparedness Month, it’s a good time for everyone to check their emergency kits and portable rigs and make sure your batteries are charged. NOAA’s prediction of an active hurricane season has come true in spades. Looks like amateur radio will be a valuable member of the Florida emergency response team. They’ve put out a call for … Read more >>

Presidents Letter

Presidents Letter: Welcome to September, it has been a busy time since our last club meeting. From The Marine Corp Triathlon/12K, to the upcoming Freedom Center Tri-It-Now “THE 14.06”. The Solar Eclipse that had all of us watching or looking at. Let us not forget about Butch and his surgery. That is just to name a few. There are others that I have not mentioned. While I am on the subject of activities, let us not forget that this is National Preparedness Month. Are you ready in case something should happen?? If you would like to volunteer, there are local organizations that could use you such as CERT and ARES. These are just a couple of ways that you can make a difference to your community. As we have recently … Read more >>

Support to PWC ARES and Quantico Triathlon & 20K Run

Just a quick post to say thank you to all of the support participants from W4OVH that joined in with the Prince William County Amateur Radio Emergency Services (PWCARES) team to help support the Marine Corp Marathon (MCM) Organizations simultaneous Quantico Triathlon and Quantico 12K Run.  Although David Lane, KG4GIY was unable to be present for the event, he planned and developed the support effort and turned the final implementation over to Greg Gresham, KM4CCG and myself and we had the easy task of working with our outstanding support volunteer team to make it all happen. The Triathlon and 12K Run was a success with more than eleven hundred participants starting their respective events by either jumping into the Potomac for the 750 meter swim or starting off on a 12K … Read more >>

Additional Eclipse Operating Information

W4OVH, If you are interested in operating during the eclipse, there is a contest.   The rules are at http://hamsci.org/seqp-rules.  There are lots of bonus points available. The contest exchange is Call Sign, Signal Report, 6-Character Grid Square. If you do not know your 6-character gird square, you can look it up on QRZ by  looking up your call and then the details tab and finding ‘grid square.  You will have to log onto QRZ to get that info. If you live in the Manassas area,  my Grid square and that of Gil, KM4OZH, is FM18GR. and that should be close. There is a special logging option in N1MM logger for this contest.   They basically want cabrillo format.    If you keep a paper log,  I will help you get it into … Read more >>

Sunshine Corner August

SUNSHINE CORNER Happy August birthday wishes to Kristen / NoCall, John / KK4TCE, Karl / W4KRL, Matthew / KK4SYM, Stu / W4PR, Serge / KK4ZUT, Ronnell / KK4ZUR, Vern / K0LVS, Duane / KK4BZ and Ray / KK4AQR. John KG4NXT and I attended the Berryville Hamfest and saw several OVH members there. Great hamfest weather and it looked like a nice turnout; the tailgate area was completely full. Did anybody win a door prize? Special thanks to the following for their help with getting the trailer scrubbed – John / KG4NXT, Ray / KM4EKR, Sandy / KM4JUS, Dick / WN7S and Terry / KC4DV, great job! Here is our very own Steve N4OGR and his bride Jan KE4TMW. They participated in a square dance performance at the Prince William County Fair … Read more >>