Day 8 - August 11, 2006

We got up early this morning, and I drove Carol over to the convention hotel, which is about 1 mile west of the Holiday Inn where we are staying. She has signed up for a day full of lectures and presentations which start at 9:00 a.m. I went back to our room and made arrangements to drive down to Newington, Connecticut to visit the headquarters of the American Radio Relay League.

After getting directions, I headed out on this adventure. It was supposed to be just an hour and a half’s drive, but a traffic jam getting onto the Massachusetts Turnpike added almost another hour to the trip. I got down there about 2:00 p.m., and a volunteer ham gave me a great tour of the headquarters building, and then took me to the building where the headquarters ham station, W1AW, is located. The chief operator checked my license, and then set me up to operate at one of the visitor operating positions. I operated on 40 meter CW, and the first station I worked was W8DAT, Al, in Ashtabula, Ohio. Al is 93 years old, and is in a nursing home. He told me that he had sent his aide out to find some gin! Whatever keeps you going, I guess... After making another contact or two, I went back over to the main headquarters building and had a nice visit with Dave Patton, NN1N. Dave is the manager of ARRL Field and Educational Services, and is an excellent contest operator. This was the first time I was able to meet him face to face for a chat.

I drove back to Marlborough, and met Carol at our hotel. She said that the day full of lectures and meetings was really interesting, and that she had been having a good time. We had a nice dinner at the Olive Garden near the Solomon Pond Mall, and then went back to the hotel for the night.