Dan
Dan Romanchik, KB6NU
Shining a light on museom ships weekend
Jun 6, 2022
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 Lightship Huron was commissioned in 1921 as Lightship Number 103 and operated
primarily in southern Lake Huron near Port Huron and the mouth of the St. Clair River.
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.
Original radio gear aboard the Lightship Huron.
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.
The post Shining a light on Museum Ships Weekend appeared first on KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog.