On Monday, March 6, I worked VE100VIMY/VO1. I think that might be the longest call sign that I’ve ever worked. According to the station’s QRZ.Com page:
VE100VIMY is the call sign issued by Industry Canada, to identify station(s) which will commemorate the centenary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge, fought in France in April 1917. On that occasion, Canadian soldiers fighting as a cohesive unit, succeeded in capturing this strategic point, which had resisted previous French and British attempts to take it.
This is quite a special event operation. In addition to the Canadian operations, there will also be a French special event station in operation, TM100VIMY, according to the station’s website.
A great demo
I’ve been having a lot of problems with my AT&T UVerse Internet connection. Over the course of two weeks, I’ve had five visits from four different technicians, and the service is still flakey.
The last tech visit was on Tuesday, March 7. (I would have had them out here again, but my power was off for more than 96 hours starting Wednesday afternoon. More about that later.)
He was here for an hour and a half or so. While he was running some tests, we got to talking about this and that, and I mentioned that I was an amateur radio operator. Of course, I also mentioned that I’m a big CW operator and showed him a copy of my book, The CW Geek’s Guide to Having Fun with Morse Code.
When he had finished running his tests, he asked if he could see my station real quick. I said sure, and we headed downstairs. I fired up the rig and just happened to hear W2XB calling CQ. Don is a great operator, and I’ve worked him many times.
I punched the keyer up to 25 wpm and returned the call. Don and I had just a short QSO, as I didn’t want to delay the tech too long, but it turned out to be a great demo. I gave the tech my card and told him to download my free study guide. Who knows? I might have yet another Elmeree.
Back on the air
Last Wednesday, we had a freak windstorm here in SE Michigan. Winds of nearly 70 mph were clocked in various parts of the area. The windstorms knocked out power to more than a million people, myself included. The power was only restored yesterday afternoon, more than 96 hours after it had gone out. Those 96 hours were the longest time I’ve been without power since I moved to Ann Arbor and the longest time that I’ve been off the air in more than 12 years.
During the outage, my wife and I stayed at my mother-in-law’s house about a half hour from Ann Arbor. If I’d known the power was going to be out for so long I might have considered taking my KX1 and throwing a wire out a window.
My friend, Thom, W8TAM, is still without power. He e-mailed me on Friday, saying, “I made a couple 40m contacts last night. I’m burning battery power for radio!” How’s that for dedication? He’s using a propane heater to keep warm and a neighbor’s wi-fi to send and receive email.
In this age of climate change and deteriorating infrastructure, it probably is time to think about taking steps to insulate oneself (pun intended) from events like this.
Koos van den Hout PE4KH says
Here in the Netherlands we’re used to most special event callsigns being longer, like PA15TOUR.
Dan KB6NU says
I wish we could apply for special event callsigns like that here in the U.S. Special event callsigns here are restricted to 1×1 callsigns.
Rory says
So what did you with everything in the fridge? Looks like time for a backup genny!
Rory N6OIL
Dan KB6NU says
We took most of it over to my mother-in-law’s house. What we didn’t take probably should have been thrown out a long time ago, anyway. :)
Dave New, N8SBE says
We were out for 72 hours at our place on the west side. Our neighborhood has gotten steadily worse over the previous two-three years, and I’ve had more power outages in that time than the previous almost 30 years we’ve lived there.
We were able to stay in the house, in spite of temperatures in the teens, by virtue of figuring out how to power our furnace off my portable generator. When one of these power outages occurs, the house is typically criss-crossed with extension cords, so I can keep the refrigerator, freezer, and sump pump working. It also turned out this time that the cable internet was still working, so I ran extension cords to the basement ham shack, where the cable modem, LAN router, and wireless router are, and to our home offices. I ended up working from home via VPN for two days, so I could tend the generator, keeping it gassed up and the oil topped off.
This was pretty much the final straw. The XYL and I have been having serious conversations about having a whole-house natural gas generator installed. It’s something I’ve thought about off and on over the years, mainly from the viewpoint of a prepared ham, but having one of these while our infrastructure continues to crumble around us is becoming a requirement.
John says
Dan
I visited Vimy a few years ago as part of a battle staff ride. The park is beautifully preserved monument to tremendous sacrifice of life to break through the static trench warfare of WWI. In many places the Allied and German trenchs are only a couple of meters apart. Truly a horrendous battle won by courage and devotion of youth.
Thanks for letting your readers know about this special event. It is very unique.