President’s Letter – April 2026
Welcome to spring ! As it gets warmer, we get closer to our two big events of the OVH year: Hamfest and Field day. As you all know, Hamfest is our only fund raiser and we got bills to pay.
For the first time, we are having Hamfest at Colgon High School which has loads of parking.
We are having a combined Hamfest and Field day planning meeting on Monday April 27 at Hog
Shack 10470 Dumfries Road, Manassas, VA at 6 pm. Please come and help us with these events.
We have been working on publicizing our hamfest by distributing flyers at the Middle Peninsula
hamfest, the Vienna Hamfest and Junk in the trunk Hamfest. Here is George K4GVT at our table at
Junk in the Trunk:
Our presentation will be on a RF network with internet like capability by Jason K4APR. The will include a table full of hardware to demonstrate. This is Jason’s description:
“Virginia TARPN is a point to point packet network focused on using strictly RF links, without Internet to connect each node. Nodes are owned and located at individual amateur radio operator’s QTHs. We also have a focus on building nodes at the lowest cost, to encourage more people to join and participate. Nodes are comprised of a single Raspberry Pi single board computer running the stock Raspberry Pi Linux operating system, with TARPN specific scripts installed to control the node. Nodes are accessed through a modern web interface, allowing for easy use, without the need to sit right at the node to operate it. TARPN has been called “Social media for amateur radio”. Participating in TARPN can teach you a vast array of skills, while allowing you to operate with the network as an active user.”
Thanks to Lynn KX4HR for almost daily work on learning our website.
We all will miss Art W1CRO.
The next OVH meeting on Tuesday April 21 will be on Election day. I urge you all to vote. I will be assistant chief at a precinct and VP Gil will run the meeting.
John KG4NXT