{"id":131,"date":"2018-01-10T17:51:55","date_gmt":"2018-01-10T17:51:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vihamradio.org\/?page_id=131"},"modified":"2026-06-23T18:33:22","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T22:33:22","slug":"a-word-from-the-section-manager","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.vihamradio.org\/?page_id=131","title":{"rendered":"A word from the Section Manager"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Greetings!<\/p>\n<p>For those of you who have never met me, my name is Wess, my call is K2AHU, and I live on the island of St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands. I was Fred&#8217;s backup while he was our long term SM, so when he made his relocation of QTH, I took over for the remainder of the term and here we are!<\/p>\n<p>The U.S. Virgin Islands consist of three islands: St. Thomas, St. John, and St. Croix.<\/p>\n<p>St. Thomas (population ~45,000) is the island most familiar to everyone since it has a deep water port adjacent to the main town of Charlotte Amalie, and hosts over 1,500,000 cruise ship passengers per year. It is famous for its duty-free shopping and its multitude of tourist-related activities.<\/p>\n<p>St. John, (population ~3,500) just north and east of St. Thomas, and almost as big as St. Thomas, is accessible only by ferry or private boat. A full 2\/3 of St. John is a national park, so there is nowhere near the development that you see on St. Thomas. There are a few beautiful hotels, but it&#8217;s just a more quiet and private place.<\/p>\n<p>St. Croix (population ~35,000) is the largest of the three islands and about 35 miles south of St. Thomas. It is home to two rum distilleries, Cruzan Rum &amp; Captain Morgan, plus another is developing. We even have one end of the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), as a part of the <a title=\"National Radio Astronomy Observatory\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/National_Radio_Astronomy_Observatory\">National Radio Astronomy Observatory<\/a> (NRAO).<sup id=\"cite_ref-1\" class=\"reference\"><\/sup> These ten <a class=\"mw-redirect\" title=\"Radio antenna\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Radio_antenna\">radio antennas<\/a> work together as an array that forms the longest system in the world that uses <a class=\"mw-redirect\" title=\"Very long baseline interferometry\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Very_long_baseline_interferometry\">very long baseline interferometry<\/a>. There are also a number of nice hotels and resorts on St. Croix, but it is not as &#8220;touristy&#8221; as St. Thomas. St. Croix is also home to the only casino in the U.S. Virgin Islands (Divi Carina Bay).<\/p>\n<p>If you are visiting us for the first time or a veteran of many trips, make sure you pack your reef-safe sunscreen! The tropical sun is blistering hot and the UV rays are much hotter than in the states!<\/p>\n<p>Enjoy your stay!<\/p>\n<p>Wess<\/p>\n<p>K2AHU<\/p>\n<p>:o)<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Greetings! For those of you who have never met me, my name is Wess, my call is K2AHU, and I live on the island of St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands. I was Fred&#8217;s backup while he was our long term SM, so when he made his relocation of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":125,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-131","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vihamradio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vihamradio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vihamradio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vihamradio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vihamradio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=131"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.vihamradio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":916,"href":"https:\/\/www.vihamradio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/131\/revisions\/916"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vihamradio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vihamradio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}