Veteran's Day Special Event
 George Clisham, W1YR, operates on of four HF stations on the USS Salem for the Veteran’s Day special event. |
 Jeff Lehmann, N1ZZN, is logging stations through the 2 meter IRLP network. |
NEWINGTON, CT, November 16, 2004 -- The USS Salem Radio Club of was on the air for
Veteran's Day November 11, 2004. The heavy
cruiser, originally commissioned in 1949, is now docked at the Fore River
Shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts as a museum ship and is open to the public.
The USS Salem has five radio rooms. The first four rooms have
been restored to their original condition while the fifth has been put under
the supervision of the radio club to restore and use for its operations. The club, which uses the callsign K1USN,
operates the Amateur Radio station on special events such as Veteran's Day, as
well as other unscheduled times when club members may be on board. On any given Saturday there are hams and non
hams on board painting and fixing parts of the ship as part of this ongoing
restoration.
For the Veteran's Day special event the club had four HF
station as well as a 2 meter IRLP link to make several hundred contacts in
spite of poor propagation conditions. Bob "Whitey" Doherty, K1VV, tells us that
everyone had a great time operating and that the contacts with veterans were especially
rewarding.
Anyone who made contact with the station can get a
commemorative QSL card by sending a QSL with SASE to QSL manager K1RV, DX
stations can use the ARRL QSL Bureau.
A related story, "K1USN--on the
Heavy Cruiser USS Salem--is Host to Scouts" can be found on the ARRL Web site.
Page last modified: 11:28 AM, 23 May 2006 ET
Page author: awextra@arrl.org
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