17, 40, 75-METER OPERATING TABLE.

Ned KH7JJ, AT 20-METER OPERATING TABLE.

 

JIM WH6Q (front), AND NED KH7JJ (rear).

.JOHN KH6HAM, PETE KH6GRT, and NED KH7JJ

GUS NH7J (rear), AND JOHN KH6HAM (front).

JOHN KH6HAM, AND JIM WH6Q.

JOHN KH6HAM, AND PETE KH6GRT.

JOHN KH6HAM.

Museum Ships Weekend 2008

BMARC Members and Friends:

Museum Ships Weekend 2008, June 7-8 (UT)

For our eighth annual participation in Museum Ships Weekend we had noticeably worse conditions than last year but we made a decent showing considering that we're still stuck at or near the bottom of the sunspot cycle, and all of our contacts except locals are at least 2500 miles away. The final totals for 2008 were 630 contacts, all on HF. We worked 45 states (incredibly missing New York and New Jersey entirely, as well as North Dakota, Rhode Island, and West Virginia) and 26 countries on all continents except Africa. We had 587 contacts on 20 meters using the discone antenna on the bow, and 63 contacts on 17, 40 and 75 meters using the pair of 35-foot whips up on the flying bridge. Our 20 meter results were nearly identical to last year's; what killed us was that this year there were no good openings on 17 meters, usually one of our workhorse bands.

As always, many of our contacts were with Navy veterans or others who had special memories of Missouri or Pearl Harbor. We talked to one Pearl Harbor Survivor from 1941 who is still active on the air. Although it wasn't our primary goal, we also worked eight other museum ships: Destroyer Escort USS Stewart, Aircraft Carriers USS Hornet, USS Lexington and USS Midway, Submarine USS Razorback, RMS Queen Mary, Lightship LS Columbia, and Sternwheel Tug Portland.

Propagation summary (all times UTC): Friday afternoon (Saturday UTC)started slowly but things quickly picked up and from 0100Z to 0530Z we had a respectable pileup on 20 meters. The band opened to Europe between 0530 and 0700 and we worked eight or so countries over there including the moderately rare Isle of Man. On Saturday morning we made only about 40 contacts between 1700Z and 0100Z, but after that 20 meters opened up again and we had a pretty good run until 0600Z, although not as good as on Friday, and no more Europeans. We also had a fairly good run on 40 meters to the Western US between 0400-0600Z. On Sunday morning we had some good propagation on 20 early on, but as always it died away about 1800Z and we added only another 70 or so QSOs in the books from 1600Z until the end.

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

John Lockett KH6JL

Gus MacFeeley NH7J

Pete Wokoun KH6GRT

John Vorbau KH6HAM

[+ KH7JJ]

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

Pete KH6GRT has posted some Museum Ships Weekend photos on his website, taken by himself and Jim WH6Q. See: http://www.qsl.net/kh6grt/page3/msw2008/msw2008.htm

73 Ned KH7JJ