PVRC NEWSLETTER

SPECIAL Hamvention’YReunion/Roster ISSUE

HamventionR Banquet, Nutter Center, Wright State U, Saturday 6pm. Banquet highlights are:

Awards:

Alanson “Hap” Holly, KC9RP, Des Plaines, IL. Amateur of the Year for the Radio Information Network Drs. Owen Garriott W5LFL, Huntsville, AL and Tony England, WOORE, Dexter Ml.

Special achievement for pioneeering ham radio operations in space.

Alan Wailer, K3TKJ, Laurel, DE. Technical Excellence for www.qsl.net and www.qth.net

Speakers:

William Cross, W3TN, Edgewater, MD. PVRC’er and FCC Senior Program Analyst in PS/Wireless Div. Paul Reid, N4EKW, Stephenson, VA. Manager of FEMA worldwide HF communications system.

Please support our sponsors:

Ham Radio Outlet Ad is back cover.

The RF Connection Ad in roster

The Mast Company Ad in roster

Dayton booths 21, 22, & 23

Dayton booths 156 157. Outside 2823 2824 2825

PRESIDENT’S REPORT FOR MAY by Brian McGinness, N3OC

Hello to all PVRCers and welcome to our annual reunion edition. This issue is sent to all PVRCers, active or not, to provide you with information on our annual reunion on the air, and also what has been happening with PVRC this year. The reunion edition represents additional work for our newsletter editor, so Dick once again, thanks from all of us.

A little over seven months ago, I was on my normal commute to work, driving behind the Pentagon on Washington Blvd. and then by the Aurora Heights neighborhood where PVRC was formed, then finally to my office in Shirlington. Of course everyone knows what happened on 9/11 about 20 minutes later, it even shook our building a mile away.

My point is that the origins of PVRC are within direct sight of our little ground zero in Arlington. Although today the center of our club circle lies on a farm in rural Virginia (unknown to the farmer, of course!), it’s original circle and our club founders lived or worked in these neighboorhoods. Many PVRCers were QRV and ready to assist if needed after September 11th, but the communication needs were not that great.

Since then, things returned to normal pretty quicky. We have tried to be out there on issues effecting us as contestors, working with other major contest clubs on WRTC-2002 selection, and working with other clubs and the ARRL to implement their reduced contest coverage in QST in a positive manner.

Our contest performance has been good, but

not great. In spite of a major push, we still are unable to get enough of our members QRV for the November sweepstakes to overcome the huge efforts that both SMC and YCCC have been putting in. We have more members then they do, but we just can’t get them on the air. We will try again this November, with a few additional tricks up our sleeve.

We have done unexpectedly well in the WPX contests. That contest has a world and US club category, so we can be #2 on that one and still get the #1 US plaque. We have the 1998 plaque in hand, and it will be awarded in December to the top single op. I read we also won the 2001 plaque, so in the future we should be receiving it.

We also continue to do well in the 10 meter and 160 meter contests, but the big DX contests remain elusive to us these days. I think we can win any one contest we chose to focus on, perhaps including a dx contest, but it would be at the expense of others, including SS. I prefer the diversified approach and having a good time, winning what we can as we go.

There are a whole lot of members that help us behind the scenes, and put in a tremendous amount of work. Several give PVRC time each day. I already mentioned our newsletter editor Dick, who sorts through all the emails and manages to get our newsletter out faithfully each month. Pete, N4ZR, is a one man show out there in whiskey-victor, he manages our web site, tracks our 5-million award scores, and is managing the sweepstakes award program.

Our secretary, Bob, W2GG manages to keep our membership roster up to date from all the

different regions, track all of our contest scores each contest, and even verifies the sponsor received your log when he can.

And of course the regional chairman are out there working hard too. Just organizing a group, getting a meeting place, and producing a meeting is hard work. When we combine our efforts, we can be competetive in most contests.

Our treasury is sound, thanks to your donations. Dave, WR3L has done a superb job as treasurer for the last several years.

So on behalf of myself and our VP Jack Hammett, K4VV, thanks for another year of hard work on behalf of PVRC.

Our plans for the remainder of this year include ‘another big push for SS this year, hopefully including some personal contact or at least telephone contact to try to get everyone on that possibly can and has any interest at all. We also need to look at fine tuning our circle, which is a touchy issue for many of us. I am reluctant to do anything that would take someone currently in the circle and move them out, so 1 am hoping there is some solution out there. I hope to get together a few trustees or regional coordinators to analyze where the distant stations are, and what the impact of shifting the circle south would be.

So far this year, we have three summer meetings on the schedule. Saturday, June 1 5 is the annual W3LPL open house, Saturday, July 27 is the W4MYA open house, and Saturday August 1 7 is the annual W3YOZ fowlfest. Hope to see you there! And, please don’t forget the reunion first weekend in June.

The HamventionR 2002 will at 1pm Sunday May 1 9th.

be held in Dayton, OH from 8am Friday May 1 7th to the big door prize drawing Details may be found at www.hamvention.org. Some activities are: