Saturday and Sunday marked the 2022 edition of Museum Ships Weekend. Sponsored by the Battleship New Jersey Radio Station, it’s a great special event. This year, 89 ships were on the air, and I was fortunate to be able to participate from the Lightship Huron (LV-103, ARLHS USA-394), courtesy of the Eastern Michigan Amateur Radio Club.
The Huron is located in Pine Grove Park in Port Huron, MI. The park is located on the St. Clair River, just south of Lake Huron. The park itself is quite historic.
On Sunday, I joined Stan, AC8W; Trisha, KD8AZA; and Tony, KE8BIT. The four of us kept the ship’s station, NM8GS, all day long. Stan and James, NO8RF, worked the station on Saturday as well, mostly on 20 meters. I took two turns on Sunday, operating phone the first time and CW the second.
The call sign for the station is NM8GS. The reason for this odd call sign is that the original call sign for the Huron was NMGS. , the ship held when it was in operation. The ship still has the original radio equipment (see right), but unfortunately, it’s not currently working. Instead, the club has installed an Icom IC-725 in the radio shack. The antenna is a 20-meter dipole strung between the ship’s masts.
Band conditions were pretty good on Sunday, and Stan said that they were even better on Saturday. There was a lot of activity, too. Rarely did we have to call CQ. Most of the time we were managing pileups, both on phone and CW.
According to Stan, MN8GS made 432 contacts, including 401 phone contacts and 31 CW contacts. We worked station in 43 states and 6 provinces. In addition, we made 7 DX contacts, including Bermuda, Cuba, France, Netherlands, Portugal, Puerto Rico, and Slovenia. NM8GS worked 16 museum ships, 17 if you count the USS Texas Battleship which wasn’t registered.
Overall, I had a great time. It was my first time aboard the Huron, and I got a nice tour from the docent when I wasn’t operating. And, not only did I get to take part in the museum ship special event, I was able to activate a lighthouse as well.
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