September can’t come soon enough for the Warren County Radio Club W2WCR, whose members are planning a club picnic and POTA activation to mark the bicentennial of the Erie Canal. The club’s president Bernie N1NDN told Matt K2EAG and Mike N2MAK that the POTA event the two have organized from the 16th through to the 25th of September provides a perfect opportunity for everyone to try operating a portable station while celebrating the historic canal.
While most of the portable stations are likely to be at various points along the route known as the Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor, not all the activations are likely to be on dry land. Matt said that the Radio Association of Western New York W2PE hopes to operate aboard the museum ship USS Little Rock CLG4 in Buffalo while, at the opposite end of the canal in Albany, hams are hoping to activate another museum ship, the USS Slater WW2DEM. Matt and Mike are looking for as many individual hams and clubs as possible to sign up. Meanwhile, there’s plenty of room along the corridor, which has the POTA designation of US-6532. The radio event is timed to coincide with the World Canal Conference that kicks off on the 21st of September in Buffalo.
If you’d like to help honor the canal’s history, contact Matt at the email address in the text version of this week’s newscast script at arnewsline.org - or look for him on the Facebook page of Upstate New York Parks on the Air.