Tuesday, December 2, 2014

N4USA Amateur Radio Station at the Chantillly Farm


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                         N4USA at Chantilly

Chantilly Farm and Campground in Floyd Virginia just a few minutes from the Blue Ridge Parkway (MP150). Ham Radio operators are welcome to operate at the campground.

Chantilly Campground is Ham friendly with Amateur Radio Station in our Campground office and many location with trees or other structures making it very easy to put up a wire antenna at a good height. The radio background noise extremely low as we are in a rural area with no industrial noise and very few close neighbors. QRP operators love this location. WiFi is available from most locations on our 200 acres. It is a delight to operate from Chantilly. 

David KK4WW Curator of N4USA and owner of  Chantilly Campground has been a ham operator for 62 years makes this comment  "this is the best radio location I have ever operated from". We are in Floyd County, Virginia the Heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Ham operators love our 2500 foot  mountain top location for operating DX.  VHF/UHF operators have wonderful propagation up and down the East Coast.

Our camping guest can chose full service RV camping or tent camping at most any location on our 200 acres.  Some primitive tent location have ac power. We are open all year "Weather permitting"

Floyd County VA has many other interesting events and activities that the whole family can enjoy. The area is known for its many musicians and artist. Every week their are numerous music events within the county.  A number of art galleries and studio's are open 12 months of the year. Other activities include hiking, mountain biking, Blue water canoeing & kayaking, visiting organic farms and much more. You may want to visit Chantilly Farm during a weekend we have a music or other event at our farm. Check out this list of activities visit Floyd Virginia .

Check out these video's of Chantilly Farm - a view from the Drone "CLICK"   and a view from the ground "CLICK"

About N4USA

Amateur Radio station N4USA is part of the "Foundation for Amateur International Radio Service"  (FAIRS) -- a none profit foundation with the mission statement of "International Good Will Though Amateur Radio" . The LCF Group has been directing the activities for FAIRS for 24 years with projects in many countries. The "LCF Group" consist of myself David Larsen KK4WW, Gaynell Larsen KK4WWW & Dee Wallace KG4VMI.

Click on photo to enlarge 
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Gaynell KK4WWW op at N4USA 

Here is Gaynell Larsen KK4WWW operating as N4USA. David Larsen KK4WW, and Dee Wallace KG4VMI are owner operators of Chantilly Campground and welcome visiting hams to operate the station at our campground office as N4USA.  Visitors are welcome to set up there own station here at Chantilly and operate with there own call as well.

Gaynell & David Larsen and Dee Wallace are also the Directors of "The Foundation for Amateur International Radio Service" (FAIRS).  FAIRS mission is "International Goodwill though Amateur Radio". The FAIRS Foundation has had projects in many countries during the past 25 years. Information at fairs.org


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Clement J73CPL operating N4USA @ Chantilly


N4USA amateur radio station is located about 6 miles from the the town of Floyd VA  at Chantilly Farm. The operation from the farm is excellent with no industrial noise and on a mountain ridge at 2600 feet in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Here is Clement Pierre Luis our friend from Dominica operating N4USA.





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N4USA antenna at Chantilly Farm


The beam antenna at N4USA Chantilly is on a 35 foot crank up tower and works very good. A G5RV is used for other hf bands and several UHF/VHF antenna's & transceivers are part of the station. We have many tall trees making it easy to put up wire antennas for field day or camping style operation.  Here is an Ariel video of our 200 acres.


That is Dave KK4WW  cranking up the beam.



Check out these video's of Chantilly Farm - a view from the Drone "CLICK"   and a view from the ground "CLICK"



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N4USA QSL card 

This is our large 8 x 11 QSL card for confirming contact during special events.










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N4USA QSL card backside



The back of QSL enlarge to read about our the FAIRS foundation was started in 1992.








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lr Dave Larsen KK4WW ,Vlad Goncharsky U5WF

FAIRS was formed as an Amateur Radio nonprofit in 1992 after a trip to the Soviet Union in October of 1990. The 11 FAIRS founders realized that a group of amateur radio hams had no recognition or ability to function at high government levels & applied for the nonprofit charter. Dave KK4WW shown here with Vlad Goncharsky (RT) U5WF. Vald was FAIRS member #3 and a very good friend until his death several years ago.  FAIRS members made about 20 visits to the former Soviet Country Ukraine from 1990 to 2007.  Amateur radio projects are still on going by FAIRS in Ukraine by Victor Goncharsky US5WE.

I was fortunate to  have funds to take a professional film maker on one of our Ukraine/Russia visits in 1992. Jerry Shelor (Film Maker from Virginia Tech) and our group carried 400lbs of video equipment  (AN Iphone would do the job today) on this trip of 4 weeks.  Jerry made a wonderful documentarty of that trip and you can see it here "FAIRS in the former Soviet Union" CLICK

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A few samples of  N4USA FAIRS projects at home and International.

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Boy Scout JOTA at N4USA Chantilly Farm


Cub Scouts & Boy Scouts operating Scout Jamboree on the Air from N4USA at Chantilly. The local Floyd Amateur Radio Society W4FCV and the Amateur Radio Club from Virginia Tech K4KDJ assisted this 2014 JOTA.

Here is a short video clip from the JOTA CLICK



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Floyd County High School Radio Club N4FCH
FAIRS assisting the Floyd Amateur Radio Society with the club station at the Floyd County High School N4FCH.

Dee Wallace KG4VMI (FAIRS teaching some radio skills- center is Tom King W4VZH (W4FCV club) directing the club day at the High School. Chris Walters is on the right one of the club members.

The Floyd County Amateur Radio Society members have installed a very nice hf  UHF & Vhf station at the school. The antennas are on the roof of the school and it is a nice location to operate from with good signals.

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Bioche Dominica 

FAIRS operates from the Caribbean Island of Dominica as J79USA. Various grants of funds and equipment have been made to the amateur operators of Dominica during the past 18 years.

Here is a fish of gratitude for donating a computer to a fishing village project. We ate the fish and it was very good with the Caribbean spices. Yum Yum.



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Joseph J73JT Dominica


This is J73JT Joseph on the East Coast of Dominica (Castle Bruce) one many hams FAIRS assisted with equipment to enable the Island to have backup Emergency Radio Communication.

Video of Joseph in Castle Bruce , Dominica 

Here is newest J73JT Video 2/20/15 "CLICK"




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FAIRS Banner

The FAIRS banner with logo. We use this at many functions and Ham Radio Fest -- FAIRS has had a commercial booth at the Dayton Hamvention for more than 25 years, When you visit the Hamvention come by and say HI - we are usually at space 412 near ARRL.





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Update October 8, 2015 - FAIRS one of our entities listed below has been active in helping the people in Dominica with funds and supplies to recover from the September 4th storm Erika (See Story here). More then 30 lives were lost and 600 homes destroyed and  the cost to recover is estimated at  1/2 the annual GDP. Any assistance readers would like to donate  for this recovery effort will be appreciated. Here is link for secure donation Pay Pal   . Thank you , David Larsen, FAIRS Director & Computer museum curator.
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David Larsen
FAIRS is an Amateur Radio lMembership group and We would like to have you and other hams that like and believe in the work of FAIRS to be members. You can sign up on this page at the FAIRS websiteJoin N4USA every Sunday, Tuseday & Thursdays on 14,318.5Mhz at 1200z for radio schedule with our Caribbean and South American Ham friends.

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