who  then went on to work his way up to  General in the US Army.  Johnny Clem was born in Newark, Ohio (Licking County) where COOKEN ARC is located.

Look for us on  7.170 +- QRM, or 7.230 + or - QRM 
Operating from  10am - 4 pm.

As in past years,  you can self-print your own certificate,  once the logs are posted. QSLs are available via LOTW, or direct
( with sase) to W3HKK.

See you on the band.   

Hams, being by nature solitary creatures who normally have a wall of electronica between them and other humans, are not often blessed with excessive amounts of in-person social grace.  Perhaps they simply weren't prepared to deal with walking a new person through what amateur radio can be.  Perhaps they were just plain busy; as Jim pointed out, if the people you tried to interact with were focused on some activity, perhaps they simply didn't relish interruption. 

Nicely and cleverly said.

Our club had 4 stations to set up for FD, and 4 main operators, with 5 other operators sitting in, including a 10 yr old.
We had  maybe 10 other visitors.  I see a dozen breaks in my operating log of 15-90 minutes each -  to rest, eat, chat, and greet, and to answer questions.  So I remember several folks stopping by wondering what CW was etc.

Our largest club issues are: an ageing membership ( less physically capable), and a need  for more folks willing to help with set up and tear down, as well as more  ssb, cw, digital operators.  Each  year,  be it for a contest like the OhQP, OSPOTA, June VHF contest,  the Jan and Feb CQWW 160m contests ( cw and ssb) , we seem to find 1 or 2 more folks with an interest in what we are doing.  So its a slow process to grow our group, and new faces are welcome.   But as another so adequately stated above,  "welcome" isnt always  communicated  as well as we would like.   Yet, every club seems to have 2-3 folks who are good people people and that bridges the gap.

Clearly I fall into the contester category, but among the help at set up/tear down are others who far prefer EMMCOM, PR, social events, and technical areas.  We even bought a hexbeam for contests/FD and over half of the  contributions came from those other folks who dont show a big interest in contesting.  A nice indication of how club members support each  other, even when our interests differ.

Try another couple of clubs til you find one  that appeals.  And good luck.

Boy do most of these posts sound familiar.

The  heat and sun makes it rough on 70+ year olds to be out hauling gear, putting up antennas, setting up tents, etc - not to mention tearing your own shack apart to bring out the rig and eqpt, then taking it back and reassembling it a few days later.

It really boils down to the aging of our ham population, and how many younger members there are with the energy we used to have, who want to get involved.

Emotions run from the fun of planning,  excitement and anticipation,  to the chores of transporting and many hours setting up, the surprises and vagarities of propagation, sleep deprivation, good food, to the real work of tear down while in a depleted frame of mind, to going home to the AC and a bug-free environment, and sleeping it off.

The emotional hills and vallies eventually level off and you feel good about what was accomplished.  But make no mistake about it, as we age, we can do less in more time, so it takes a GOOD turnout at set up and tear down to keep the work bearable.  If you let 3-4 guys do 90% of the work, they will eventually burn out.

not seen many good openings either up here in Ohio. 

More active sun=Less Es?

a rough count of 1200 qsos made by our 4 stations.  40 was excellent- all day and night.  80 gave me runs of up to 119/hr just before sunrise. 20 was good and 15 was pretty hot too.  10 was essentially closed.  Not much on 6m which surprises me with all the new rigs  having that band. 

Overall, these were the best conditions Ive seen in a couple of years.  No rain.  Hot but   light  QRN.  A large turnout of ticks and spiders but mosquitos were weakly represented thanks to our ongoing drought.

How did others do in FD?  Both clubs and individuals???  Feel free to jump in and trade experiences.

Mine was watching tiny spiders crawl out of my laptops keyboard as I entered qsos in the darkness just before sunrise.

Well two of them were.  Both had W7.  Mine and the fourth one had XP.

We all used N3FJP FD software 2.6. 

Are W7 and XP doomed to be mutually exclusive when it comes to networking?  OR, is there a simple solution that could be employed?

Thanks in advance.

I was just in Hawaii. In Hilo, along the bay is Banyan Drive, with it's awesome  Banyan Trees, planted by  notables like Babe Ruth, Richard Nixon, King George V, and...Amelia Earhart.  Each has a brass label with the date and name of the donor.

So in another way, she lives on.

Got it.  Tnx Gene!

12M, 17M, 30M AND 60M

Looks like 4 stations this year, off  commercial mains, operating   ssb, cw, digital.  Bands will be 80-6m.  100w.  This years new secret weapon is a club hexbeam to go up at around 35 ft.  for 20-15-10-6M.

See you this weekend.

where  and when can I find the  raw scores posting for the June VHF Test?  I checked ARRL and found nearly 1000 logs had been submitted but nothing about raw scores.

??

Tnx Jeff!  The openings were   BIG and  not from the usual  states (FL and TX) We worked lots of 0's and 1's plus pretty much  all over the country

But we were hampered again by  power line noise than ran 59+10 due north of our QTH, to S5 or more in other directions.  So apologies to those who called and didnt get a reply from us.

Our QSO total was 180, up from 125 last year with essentially the same set up:  100w to a 4 el yagi at 38 ft.  That's nearly a 50%  improvement. 

See ya'll next year.

Our club, WW8OH, Licking County, Ohio  made 180 qsos in the VHF Contest, running 100w to a 4 el yagi at 36 ft. We again had S9+20 power line noise to the north which dropped to S5 at best in other directions, so apologies to those who called and wondered why we didnt come back.

Nice strong signals, especially from 0 Land and 1 Land, but very few 4's for some strange reason.  Usually  FL and TX are constants for us, but not this year.

We picked up Mexico, the entire West Coast,  but nothing from the Carrib.

See you next year

COOKEN ARC - WW8OH - will make its second appearance in the ARRL VHF Contest this coming weekend.  QTH:   "The Barn"  EM89TX .

The QTH IS a barn ( now refurbished into a hunting cabin and shack) and is located  about 2/3rds up  a 700 ft hill in rural SE Licking County, with clear shots to the E, N, W, and a moderate  upslope to the South.  Our station will run 100w SSB to  a 4 el 6M yagi and an 8 el 2M yagi, mounted on a 30 ft  tower, and fed through 50 ft of RG213.

5 ops will man the station which will be active over  both days of the contest.  Antenna/tower set up will be Friday, just in case.... (I dont think a pic can be inserted here or I would have included a couple of nice eones from last years event.)

Ops will include: Jack (K8EM), Brad(AC8GX), Kevin(AC8GI), with  Bob  (W3HKK/KH6) operating from Mauna Loa, on 2m, with an IC2AT handheld. (....you never know!)

Look for us beween 50.125 and 50.175 depending on conditions.