PVRC Web Story - by Steve Affens K3SA PVRC Webmaster
Nothing can compete with the magic and allure of contacting someone "live" on
the other side of the world via wireless CW on the low end of 40 meters! There
are those of us, (yes those aging contesters and DXer's) who can remember the
day when we, the radio amateurs, where the ONLY way a live contact with a VK
(Australia) could take place. "HF" ionospheric communication was the only game
in town. Pity the youngsters today, brought up on watching live satellite
video/sound reports on the news, and email coming in from the Internet free of
static crashes and QSB. They simply missed out on the romance of spinning the
radio dial through the jungle of signals across the bands.
So here we are, young and old, like it or not, with a new arena for global
communications: the Internet. The Net has a magic all its own. It is no
surprise that we, the amateur radio community, would be one to quickly embrace
the new technology. Clicking a computer mouse to request a file from the other
side of the world via the Internet, has its metaphor in a key, a transmitter, an
antenna, and our Internet, the beloved ionosphere.
Now, connected to the Internet, computers or servers are popping up all over
the world, at an enormous rate, hosting a marvelous tapestry of files full of
text, graphics, pictures, audio, and video. In April 1995, the Potomac Valley
Radio Club was one of the first radio clubs (or anyone for that matter) to
publish information on the electronic global village called the World Wide Web.
I (K3SA) along with the help of other PVRC members and, in particular, Frank
Donovan, W3LPL, stayed on top of the latest new webs as they appeared and made
links to them from our page. With the help of PVRC historian at the time, W3GN,
Larry Fadner, we were able to make the site much more than a giant bookmark of
radio Web sites. The site is rich with the core historic documents that tell
the PVRC story. Pete Smith, N4ZR helped pioneer electronic publication of the
PVRC Newsletter by emailing me the files for preparation and uploading to our
web. Now, Dick Wilder, K3DI, who does a meritorious job publishing our (paper)
Newsletter, now reaches a world wide audience with his work via the Web. He
emails the latest Newsletter to me, and I have it linked on our Web site within
minutes.
This month, April 1997, we reached another milestone. Server names or Domain
Names are like call signs; once assigned, they are gone...and so we registered
our name as pvrc.org. Our global address (Uniform Resource Locator or URL)
changed from its original http://www.access.digex.net/~k3sa/pvrc.html to
http://www.pvrc.org. Anyone, anywhere in the world who is connected to the
Internet, can find us this way.
Thanks to all who have sent in new URL's or have found links that have changed
or faded away into cyberspace. With everyone working together, we can keep our
site alive and a valuable resource to those interested in the PVRC, Amateur
Radio, Contesting, and searching the Web.
73, all the best, Steve Affens K3SA
