MUSEUM SHIP'S WEEKEND 2007, 9-10 June 2007

Unfortunately, I was traveling on the mainland and unable to participate in this years action. This years final results as follows:

BMARC Members and Friends:

Museum Ships Weekend 2007June 9-10 (UT)

For our seventh annual participation in Museum Ships Weekend we didn't have quite as good conditions as last year but we made quite a respectable showing for still being at or near the bottom of the sunspot cycle. Final totals were 833 contacts on HF (just one less than last year's all-time high) plus another 15 on 440 MHz IRLP for a grand total of 848. We worked 43 states and 31 countries on all continents except Africa. We had 586 contacts on 20 meters using the discone antenna on the bow, and 247 contacts on 17 meters using the pair of 35-foot whips up on the flying bridge. We also worked five other museum ships.

Propagation summary (all times UTC): Friday afternoon (Saturday UTC)started slowly but things quickly picked up and from 0100Z to 0530Z we had respectable pileups on both 20 and 17 meters. 17 meters closed to the US mainland about 0530Z, but remained open to Japan and Asia. 20 meters closed to the mainland around 0700Z but we made many Asian and a few European contacts on SSB and CW until about 0830Z. On Saturday morning we made only about 40 contacts between 1700Z and 0100Z, but after that both 20 and 17 meters opened up again and we had a pretty good run until 0700Z, although not as good as on Friday. Sunday morning was quiet with only another 50 or so QSOs in the books from 1700Z until the end. We would have worked more stations on Sunday if it hadn't been for an S7 noise level probably due to local power lines. Pearl Harbor is not a good place for DXing!

As always, many of our contacts were with Navy veterans or others who had special memories of Missouri or Pearl Harbor. Although not primarily looking for contacts with other ships ourselves, we did work five: sternwheeler Portland, destroyer Kidd, aircraft carriers Hornet and Lexington, and the support aircraft carrier CVS Essex.

A major highlight of the weekend was having Eddie W7GMH as one of our operators. Eddie was a radioman on board Missouri in July and August 1945, and came back 62 years later to help us out. He's held his W7GMH call continuously for 70 years and is still active daily on SSB and CW from his home on the Big Island of Hawaii. He once held the CW receiving record at 63 WPM and can still do well over 20 WPM on a straight key. He was featured on a KHNL TV interview taped on the ship Saturday and broadcast that evening. See

Thanks to our operators/loggers for alternately putting up with boredom when the bands were dead and dealing with heavy pile-ups of stations calling when conditions were good. In alphabetical order:

Jim Davis WH6Q

Chuck Epperson AH6SC

Ralph Javins N7KGA (mainland guest operator)

Jim Long K4UHL

Bob Maguire KH6LDO

Eddie Miller W7GMH

Debby Riehl N7FL (mainland guest operator)

John Vorbau KH6HAM

Alexey Yushin VE2XAA (mainland guest operator)

[+ KH7JJ]

And special thanks to Mike Wiedenbach, our liaison and supervisor on theMissouri Memorial Association staff, who has enthusiastically supported all our efforts in Radio Central.

73 Ned KH7JJ