Help us celebrate our first president's birthday. Our annual George Washington Special Event will take place on Feb. 17 (Sat) & 18 (Sun), 2024 in the greenhouse of the Mount Vernon Estate in Alexandria, VA.
Details:
On Saturday: MVARC members will first arrive at about 8:30 AM to set up stations. The stations will likely be operational by 10 AM.
Anyone and everyone will be permitted to get on the air, as we will use the club’s call, K4US. We would love to put little kids on the air too!
Historically, we make about 300 contacts, and our range is generally from California to Europe. Most of the operation will be on the phone band (i.e., talking), but there will also be someone making Morse codes contacts. If you want to get on the air, great! If you just want to see how it’s done, that is fine too. Many members have 2M mobiles in their cars, and they (i.e., KT4KS) would be happy to give anyone a demonstration of local transmissions.
On Saturday, we will operate until about 3 PM (as we must be off the grounds by 4 P ). For a variety of reasons, Saturday is the BEST day for newbies and guests to sample ham radio! The club will leave the antennas up overnight for the next day.
On Sunday: A few members will straggle in about 8:30 AM to make a few more contacts. Likely, members will start to take down stations at about 11 AM.
Here's the important part...
Below you'll find maps to the site in the greenhouse of the Mount Vernon Estate.
We drive our vehicles onto the grounds, and park where indicated below. We do not park in the public parking! Since we drive onto the grounds, we do not pay any entrance fee. When you pull up to the electric gate, you first push the button and you will hear a voice ask you what your business is (or something like that). Simply respond “I am going to the greenhouse for the radio event”. The voice will then remotely open the gate for you. Then, just drive over to the parking lot. From the lot, you will see both antennas, cars with ham radio license plates and some members outside … so you will know that you are in the right place. The radios will be set up on the greenhouse, which is always usually quite warm.
