Operating at the Minnesota Veterans Home with the Mississippi in the background.
This morning, N0AIS and I set up for a couple of hours at the Minnesota Veterans Home in Minneapolis to do a demonstration of ham radio for the residents and visitors, and to “activate” RV04 (the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area) for ARRL National Parks On The Air (NPOTA) event. This 72-mile long unit of the National Park Service passes through Minneapolis and St. Paul, and provides numerous opportunities for recreation. I’ve operated from other locations along the river, but since the Veterans Home’s park-like campus is along the river, we obtained permission to use NPOTA as an opportunity to share Amateur Radio with some of the vets living there.
We had originally planned on operating from a courtyard, but due to the cold temperatures this morning, we were offered a spot inside in a sun room overlooking the river.
N0AIS photo.
We were able to open one of the windows enough to get a wire through, so while I set up the radio inside, Jim put up a dipole outside. Within a few minutes, we were on the air. Since the antenna was on the east side of the building, we didn’t put out much of a signal to the west, but we made about 60 contacts with the eastern U.S., as well as contacts with Belgium and Italy.
N0AIS photo.
One of the vets took us up on our offer to get on the air, and told one of our contacts about his service. We had one WW2 radio operator in the audience. She didn’t want to get on the air, but she did send a few letters with a code practice oscillator we had brought along.
The Minnesota Veterans Home was founded in the 1888 as the Old Soldiers Home, as a residence for indigent Civil War veterans. It currently provides high quality care for over 300 veterans. It’s located on a 53 acre campus near Minnehaha Falls. The property adjoins the Lock and Dam Number 1 (the Ford Dam) on Mississippi River. As you can see from the pictures, the room from which we were operating is directly over the lock.
I would like to especially thank Jim, N0AIS, for providing most of the equipment (and doing more than half of the work), and to the staff of the Minnesota Veterans Home for making this event possible.
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