Another Successful OVH Field Day!
Sunshine Corner
SUNSHINE CORNER – June 2023 Happy Birthday wishes to our club members celebrating this June month – David, KQ4BDS; Dana, KM4TTP; Ron, K3FR; Jan, KE4TMW; Jim, KM4SXM; Robert, W4PHX; Gene, N4NHFW; Wayne, AG4ZZ and Bob, K4HJF. Hope you all have wonderful birthdays with lots of candles! Congratulations Corner: Congrats and many kudos and thank yous to the OVH team for holding a great Tailgate at Signal Hill Park June 3rd, and all our great volunteers. Thank you to Matt, KE7EX and David, KG4GIY for stepping in for the Talk-in, and hope Jim is getting better. Many thanks again for George providing great pictures. Here is link for the event: https://k4gvt.com/ovh/OVH_2023_Tailgate/index.html New Member Updates: Luis, KQ4GBC and David, KD0ODS have applied to the OVH, and hope to see them soon … Read more >>
President’s Letter for June 2023
Hello Everyone, The last few days in this, the first full week of June certainly has been different. The Canadian wildfires combined with an unusually low jet stream for this time of year has given us days of very bad air quality. In fact, the Washington, DC area reached the worst air quality in the world on Thursday, June 8th. We even had our first ever “Code Purple” day. And yet, in this bad luck, I think I see some good luck. We have just completed a successful Tailgate Party. If that bad air from those wildfires had reached us days earlier, I don’t think we would have had a successful Tailgate Party. The turnout would have been much lower, if any at all. So, I choose to be thankful … Read more >>
Review: 2023 Tailgate Party
With the weekend behind us, it is time to take a look back at our Tailgate Party 2023.While we await the official numbers from our Treasurer & Tailgate Chairman Don, WA2SWX, I call it an unqualified success. It was our second ever Tailgate Party and I can say we have earned more than two and a half times our seed money. I have long held that “Good luck happens when preparation meets opportunity”. We were certainly well prepared. Led by Don in his fourth outing as Tailgate / Hamfest Chairman, it was as close to a turnkey operation as he could make it. Your OVH Tailgate Committee met three times in 2023 to bring this together. With the Coronavirus days receding in the rearview mirror, our most pressing concern was … Read more >>
OVH VE Session
The OVH sponsored a successful VE session on May 27th with a total of 6 candidates and everyone passed! We minted 2 brand new Techs, upgraded 2 folks to General Class and 2 other folks to Extra Class. In a first for us, we tested a legally blind ham Dominic, KD4MEZ. Bruce, KN4GDX read him the questions aloud. In order to help, the ARRL had sent us 2 versions of the Extra Class exam that did not have diagrams. It would be hard to read a diagram. The VEs who attended were: Al, KB4BHB; John, KG4NXT; Mark, WA4KFZ; Jay, NQ4T; Bruce, KN4GDX; Sean, KO4TZO; David, KY4MM; Ken, KN4DD and Andy, KK4ADQ. Special thanks for Ken for getting us a free room at his Lord of Life church in Clifton. Please … Read more >>
First POTA Activation
James, KQ4CAX activated Conway Robinson State Forest in Gainesville, VA for POTA (Parks on the Air) on May 21st. James used FT8 on 20 meters using an end fed half wave antenna. He was accompanied by Don, WA2SWX and John, KG4NXT who also successfully activated the park. The solar flux was 170, which is good but the K index was 4, which is not favorable.
President’s Letter for May 2023
Hello Everyone, I would like to jump right in this time. After a 2 year transition, the FCC implemented its new RF Exposure program. Ron, K3FR, reminded us at our last meeting on April 18th, that the rules phase-in would begin on May 3rd. As of this writing, that phase-in occurred about one week ago. Ron informed us that on pages 64 thru 66 in the May 2023 issue of QST magazine, there is an excellent article detailing this event. He also reminded us that on page 65, the ARRL provided a link to an ARRL RF Exposure calculator tool that is free. http://arrl.org/rf-exposure-calculator The article also states there is a simple method that many hams would like, but cautioned it might be too conservative for other hams, and the … Read more >>