Vienna Wireless Winterfest 2020

As per tradition, we reserved a LARG table at WinterFest!

Table D3, right at room entrance, and a very good spot!

Feel free to bring your stuff, er, treasures. And if you have any big items or large loads, please let me know early, JIC?

As usual, you will want to label and oversee your stuff, although you can often share with other LARGies.

Please advise, and Thanks!

—– Forwarded Message —–
Subject: Early Registration for Clubs at Winterfest 2020

The Vienna Wireless Society (VWS) hamfest, celebrating our 44th year, will once again be held in the Gym at the Annandale Campus of the Northern Virginia Community College on Sunday, March 29, 2020. We hope your Club will again participate in our hamfest.

Early registration is now open! You can register on line here.

If you wish to snag the same table(s) as last year, and if don’t remember your 2019 table location, you can view last year’s table layout here. Please be aware that we will open general vendor registration on December 1st, so I am hoping that you will lock down table(s) before general registration opens.

Table rental prices remain the same as last year. Early bird registration price is $20 per table plus $10 per vendor attendance pass. Early bird registration closes on January 31, 2020. Starting February 1st, 2020, the table rental fee is $25.00. The indoor venue opens at 8:00 a.m.; vendors can enter for last-minute setup at 6:30 am. Of course you will also set up on Saturday, March 28th in the afternoon.

We are expanding Winterfest this year. Besides our radio license testing program, VWS is sponsoring special educational programs on Emergency Communications during Winterfest 2020. This addition will bring a new focus to our hamfest, and hopefully attract a new group of participants. Attendance last year was 500 attendees. We have increased our advertisement effort, which began in June and combined with our special educational programs, we expect to increase over last year’s record-breaking attendance level.

More details can be found here.

Tuesday CW Net Report Nov 5 2019

Called the net at 8:00PM with K3WD checking in. His signal was barely readable, so with no further checkins, I closed the net. Please join us next week on our normal schedule. 73 de Dave KE4S

ARISS Station – Antenna Setup

After yesterday’s very soggy delivery of all the gear to the school, today began setup. The Ashburn Fire Station had to respond to a call, so their tower truck was delayed. To make progress, a bunch of us relayed all the items that would fit through the hatch and carried them to the antenna site above the auditorium. We pulled the antenna base (oof!) and 2M antenna with rope. The the tower truck arrived and made quick work of getting the ballast for the antenna base (several hundred pounds of concrete blocks) onto the roof. THANK YOU ASHBURN STATION FD.

Ashburn Fire Station Engine “Tower 6” made short work of getting the heavy items to the roof!

We quickly assembled the antenna, mast, base, and supporting electronics and cables and just managed to get everything together before sundown. The results are very satisfying:

L-R: KN4QPI, KS1G, and KF4TJI. Photo by Nancy H.

Thursday, we complete set-up and be ready for rehearsal with the faculty and students that afternoon after school.

THANK YOU to everyone who helped with set-up today!

73 de KS1G

Thursday SSB Net Report Oct 17 2019

80m – 3675 KHz on 18 OCT 2019 Open 0000Z
Listening 3813 KHz for General class ops to check-in
QNI:
W0MPM John
W5ODJ John
KE4S Dave, net control
We discussed our current progress on antenna projects, software upgrades, and vagaries of telecom company provisioning and billing. We closed at 0032Z.

Please join us next week or any Thursday at 8:00PM.
73 de Dave KE4S

2m Net Report for October 13, 2019

This is the post-net report for the most famous Sunday Night Net held by the Loudoun Amateur Radio Group on 2-Meters FM. Tonight the net was held on the 146.700 MHz (-) (No tone ) at 8:30 PM sharp. KN4AWT (Jim) was NCS for the evening.

Those who checked in were:

  • KN4AWT – Jim (NCS)
  • KC5CG – Gump
  • N2CV – Al*
  • KN4YOV – John*
  • N4PD – Paul
  • WA4TXE – Dave

* Signifies that the station was unintelligible or couldn’t be heard after checkin.

Conditions on the WA4TXE repeater were challenging. Only those within the Leesburg, VA area where able to be heard reliably by NCS. Dave, the owner of the repeater, was monitoring on the control line and explained that he is aware of the issues and needs to go onsite to make adjustments to the antenna connection. The net was closed at 8:49 PM.

LARG 40M Digital Watering Hole

There was a very informal digital net tonight on 40 meters at 7.07325 Mhz. Myself, W5ODJ, and John, W0MPM, had a nice chat on a very quiet band tonight. We started a little late at 19:33 local time and ended about 20:05.

John was loud and clear at my QTH with a SNR at or above 25dB the entire conversation with 100% copy.

Hope to see you on a digital net soon.

73,

John
W5ODJ

Thursday SSB Net Report 10 OCT 2019

80m – 3670 KHz on 11 OCT 2019 Open 0000Z
Listening 3815 KHz for General class ops to check-in
QNI:
K3WD Bill
KE4S Dave, net control

Called the net on 3670 to be clear of traffic just above our normal frequency. Signals good, but some QRN as background at S7. We talked a bit about the weather in the west, and about our antenna work. My tower is likely to be back in service in the next couple of days, so I should have it ready before winter storms arrive. This net is open for anyone to check in – please join us every Thursday at 8:00PM.
Closed 0015Z

10m – on 28.405 MHz
No net tonight. My wire antennas do not tune 10 meters, and nobody picked it up.
73 de Dave KE4S

Thursday HF SSB Net Report 3Oct2019

80m – 3675 KHz on 4 OCT 2019 Open 0000Z
Listening 3816 KHz for General class ops to check-in
QNI:
K3WD Bill
W0MPM John
KE4S Dave, net control

Closed 0017Z

10m – on 28.405 MHz
No net tonight. My antenna does not tune 10 meters, and nobody picked it up.

Thursday HF SSB Net Report 26SEP2019

80m – 3675 KHz on 27 SEP 2019 Open 0000Z
Listening 3831 KHz for General class ops to check-in
QNI:
K8SYH Bill
W5ODJ John
KE4S Dave, net control

Since this is the prime season for antenna work, we took a couple rounds to discuss the progress on our individual projects. We are all hoping to finish the projects soon to be ready for the Fall and Winter seasons.
Closed 0017Z

10m – on 28.405 MHz
No net tonight. My antenna does not tune 10 meters, and nobody picked it up.