Radio Association of Western New York

RAWNY would like to congratulate Matt K2EAG on receiving the Member of the Year plaque for his outstanding efforts in promoting & scheduling special events and activations over the past year, and for fostering our relationship with the Buffalo Naval Park and implementing activities for their Saturday overnight Youth Encampments. Thank you, Matt!

RAWNY members—please review the operating tips below to help ensure smooth operation and maximize our success this weekend.

We hope to keep stations busy on each of the ships, calling CQ Museum Ships Weekend and working stations, while also searching and making contacts with any of the 111 ships registered for the event. Don’t forget to update your operator callsign in the log, and then spot your activity to the DX cluster and POTA. This will be critical to help stations find us, as they need to work at least 15 ships for the hunter certificate, and there’s also recognition for the top stations.

Museum ships weekend is not a contest, so make friendly contacts and talk about our station, the ship and our club. Since we’re using the club call, including your name can make these contacts more personal, too. More information is available on the organizer’s site, here: https://www.nj2bb.org/museum/

Take time to visit each of our stations, and ask to operate, and you’ll also be included on that ship’s certificate. When making contacts with other ships, you may wish to have them log your personal call, too… if you are working towards the Museum Ships Weekend Hunter certificate, or you wish to QSL directly with them for their card.

Parks On The Air Spotting

We can spot our activity on POTA.app as US-6532, be sure to change the activator callsign to W2PE (W2B, W2C or W2S), as it will default with your own call.

Because we may have multiple stations operating concurrently, include the band as part of the callsign in the spot (ex. W2PE/10M, W2PE/20M, etc.), to avoid the spots overriding each other on the POTA spotting page. USS Croaker will be operating as W2C, USS The Sullivans as W2S, and USS Boston memorial as W2B.

The comment field should start with the mode (CW, SSB, etc.) followed by the ship name.

DX Summit Spots

Spotting to the DX Summit Cluster at DXsummit.fi is recommended for Museum Ships Weekend, by clicking “Share a spot”.

The K1USN Radio Club has created a special "MSW Filtered Search" for DX Summit spots.
This unique tool will allow Museum Ships Weekend participant "chasers" to have real time capability to see where all participants are being spotted. https://www.k1usn.com/index.html

This will especially help DX stations and those not specifically chasing POTA to find you. Again, use the comments field to mention the ship, or highlight the specific event.

Please check the spots frequently to find other ships to work.

Logging

Please keep an accurate log of your contacts as W2PE (or special event call) on the clubs’ computers. Remember as soon as you take a seat at the station, update your own callsign as the operator in the software. POTA will use this field to also give you credit for the contacts and activation (if you make at least 10 contacts).

Activity aboard the Little Rock should use the club call W2PE, or our special event callsigns when aboard the other ships, and always with your own license privileges.

If you ever need to log to your own device, like when we setup additional stations on the other ships, we will still take care of submitting these logs to POTA where both the club and individual will get credit.

RAWNY will be joining over 100 other museum ships, June 6-7, for the annual Museum Ships Weekend - Amateur Radio Event! We will be on the air making contacts over ham radio from each of these vessels at the Buffalo and Erie County Naval and Military Park:

USS Little Rock - W2PE
USS The Sullivans - W2S
USS Croaker - W2C
USS Boston - W2B

The USS Boston SSN-703 is new for us this year. We will be operating from her memorial/sail, in front of the main museum building.

Please stop by this weekend on your tour!

RAWNY Members—With only 6 days away, we want to provide updates as everything comes together.

We will be operating 5 stations across 4 vessels/memorial:

USS Little Rock: Operating as W2PE with both club stations using the vertical and long wire (seeking help to repair the G5RV antenna).

USS The Sullivans: Operating as W2S with the club go-box. Ken KD2KEH is the station manager, and additional operators are needed.

USS Croaker: Operating as W2C, still in need of a station/manager. Ideally a 100-watt transceiver, as QRP rigs will be too easily overloaded from our nearby stations. Matt can assist with an antenna.

USS Boston submarine sail/memorial: Operating as W2B, with the station provided by Matt K2EAG. Open to club members for operation.

All stations are open to any club member to operate. You’re encouraged to rotate between the ships, and make at least 1 contact from each location, so you can be included on those ship’s certificate, too. At least 10 contacts total from any of the ships, within the same UTC day, will also earn you a successful POTA activation! There’s nothing special you need to do—logs are uploaded by the club to POTA. Just be sure your operator callsign gets updated before you begin. Spotting to POTA and DX Summit is recommended.

USS Boston will suspend operation Saturday at 6 PM. Spaghetti dinner for the youth encampments is served around 6:30 PM. Activity aboard USS Croaker and The Sullivans needs to be complete by 8 PM, as those vessels will get closed/locked for the night. Equipment can stay onboard.

We will continue to operate into the evening from Little Rock and expect many campers visiting at that time as part of our youth encampment programming. Lights out for campers is at 10:30 PM. While we are able to operate as late as we want, berthing, if available, will be very limited.

We have all day again on Sunday to operate. The Sullivans and Croaker should be open around 8 AM. We’re looking forward to a full day on Sunday, packing up after 4 PM as the park closes at 5 PM.

RAWNY Members—This year's Museum Ships Weekend is coming up fast! We’ll be operating both Saturday and Sunday, June 6 and 7. While this is a 48 hour event, we’ll be operating from 10 AM Saturday (setup at 9:30 AM) to 4 PM on Sunday (out by 4:30 PM).

We will be operating our two stations from USS Little Rock (W2PE) and a station aboard USS The Sullivans (W2S) and USS Croaker (W2C). We will also have a portable station out at the USS Boston (W2B) sail/memorial, at the main park entrance! That’s 5 stations—so we’ll work out an operating plan as we get closer to help avoid interference while trying to give each station an opportunity on multiple bands.

We’re looking for a couple volunteers to manage the activity on Sully and the Croaker. Ideally someone with a complete portable station, which you would setup and help manage over the weekend, while also making it available for other club members and guests to operate from both days. This is a great opportunity as these other ships aren’t regularly on the air.

It’s a youth encampment weekend, but we’ll pause our Morse code bracelets for one week, so we can concentrate demonstrating radio to the campers including getting them on the air with us!

At sunset, we’ll suspend our activity on the other ships, but we can continue to have members aboard Little Rock to operate overnight. Let me know in advance if you’re interested in this opportunity. Berthing is not guaranteed as the sea cadets are also staying overnight. We’ll resume operating from the other ships at daybreak when they’re reopened.

Hope you’re also getting excited! Let Matt K2EAG know your availability and interest, so we can make sure everything gets covered.

Did you know? During the late 1960s and the 1970s, RAWNY was fortunate to have a club station – using the call W2PE – at the Salvation Army location on Main Street in downtown Buffalo. But an amazing turn of events occurred in 1976 when the City of Buffalo created a new Naval and Serviceman’s Park/Museum right on the Buffalo waterfront where the Niagara River and Lake Erie meet.

(Continued in the description under each of the pictures…)