Battleship New Jersey Amateur Radio Station (BNJARS)

2005  ACTIVITY  PAGE

| BNJARS at Dayton Hamvention | Commissioning Day 2005 | US Power Squadron Special Event |
| Museum Ship Weekend 2005 | JOTA Oct 2005 |

BNJARS at Dayton Hamvention - May 20-22, 2005

Now that the weekend is behind us, we really can't believe how well it all went. Our booth was very very busy from the beginning to the end of the Hamvention. We estimate at least 500 people stopped by the booth - some to just say hi and thanks for being there, and others to chat about working on the air or their own personal experience with the Big "J". The chairperson in charge of booth assignments stopped by Saturday and asked us to return for Hamvention 2006, so it looks like this might become a regular NJ2BB very special event.

In spite of our forum being Sunday morning (the last time slot scheduled for the event) we had 40 people in attendance - again far exceeding our expectations. At the conclusion of our presentation, our forum monitor asked if we were interested in returning next year and offered that they would try to get us a time slot on Friday or Saturday which should increase the attendance.

Special thanks to our booth personnel - Dave WA2TVS, Margaret KB2BRR, Harry AA2WN, Charlie W3CAU, Ruben WA2NBL and Dayton area resident and former BB62 crewman Gary NJ8BB.

     
Our forum was presented by Harry AA2WN and Dave WA2TVS
with assistance from Margaret KB2BRR.

Commissioning Day - May 21, 2005

     A big THANK YOU to those that participated in the Special Event operation on May 21, 2005. This event was in celebration of the 62nd anniversary of the BB62's commissioning (May 23, 1943).

     Despite poor band conditions, we were able to contact the LST- as it was underway along the Eastern seaboard.

     Our operators for the event were Ed W2KP, Lou N2HQL, Jean KA2YKN, and Mike W2OF

US Power Squadron Special Event from NJ2BB - June 11 & 12, 2005

      This year the US Power Squadron held their annual special event on the Battleship New Jersey (NJ2BB). The event promoted the National Safe Boating Council's 2005 National Safe Boating Campaign and this year's theme, "Boat Smart, Boat Safe, Wear It!". Visitors coming through the area received materials about "Safe Boating" and the US Power Squadron. Many thanks to Carl W2PTZ, Don N3HOW, Marjorie N3HOZ and Arnold N1JX of the US Power Squadron for a very successful special event station. The bands didn't co-operate much on Saturday but seemed to open up a little on Sunday afternoon.

        We hope that the US Power Squadron will come back to operate again from the Battleship New Jersey. To learn more about the US Power Squadron visit their web site at: http://www.usps.org/national/Ham/

Museum Ship Weekend - July 16-17, 2005

        This year's event turned out to be better than expected. We thought the bands would limit our contacts but we still managed a few pileups on 20 and 40 meters. In addition to two stations in the shack, we also had a station set up out in the public area of the ship for visitors to view. Our "All Navy" project had a few glitches so we weren't able to make contacts from the "Captain's Chair" on the bridge as we had hoped - we'll be working on correcting those problems for next year.

      Several visitors to the ship mentioned they had seen the event listed in local newspapers or heard about it on KYW radio. We also had many visitors from the USS Boston reunion who were on board for a tour.

     Some highlights

  • We finally got Bill, KC2JEK. operating on HF voice - what's next Bill, CW???
  • And I'm not sure if I believe it, but it was rumored that Ski was spotted with headphones in one hand and - get this - the tuning knob on a rig in the other!
  • Reports from most of the contacts were that we were LOUD. The pileup on 20m was non-stop for most of the event and 40m wasn't far behind.
  • We consumed about 5 cans of Dinty Moore Stem (yummy!), 3+ gallons of coffee, 2 dozen or so donuts, about a dozen Burger King breakfast sandwiches, and a large cache of soda and bottled water as well as various culinary delights from the Gedunk.


USS Boston Reunion visits shack
during Museum Weekend

SOME STATS FOR THE WEEKEND

932 total contacts
44 States
24 different Countries
17 Ships

Many thanks to the 19 members of our crew that worked their back-sides off to pull off yet another great weekend on the Big "J". Here are just a few pictures from the weekend:

           

Jamboree on the Air (JOTA)- Oct 2005

All in all, a REALLY great weekend and everyone from the scout troops to our operators had a ball. Lots of contacts, band conditions were not too bad and each and every scout that wanted to was able to make at least one contact and several made contacts on SSB, PSK and ATV contacts. We had a total of 77 contacts which included 18 states and 12 countries. Many thanks to all our operators and guests for making this a big success.


Some of the Cub Scouts got a chance to work PSK
with Gene, N2WFN


Ray, WB2NBJ, assists scouts with some SSB contacts.


Nancy N2ANG and Larry KB2MN help some scouts do a little CW
on a code oscillator. They really enjoyed sending their names.

Back to Top