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I had the opportunity to participate in FD 2009 as a guest of Steve Rogge, KC8TPF, and the Piqua Amateur radio club. Needless to say, I had a great time, and not too long after, obtained my license, and the call sign I now hold. I made two contacts that I was excited about, one being to the League Station, W1AW. Had a lot of fun, and will be a part of Field Day 2010!
Bradley Boehringer,
Piqua, Ohio
I headed for my now more or less customary location, my inlaws' back porch in Largo, FL. I had tried to limit what I took along, but I still ended up with a fair pile of stuff:
* Kenwood TS-430s HF transceiver
* MFJ-9406 6m transceiver
* Yaesu FT-100 HF/VHF transceiver (mobile unit, yanked from the car)
* MFJ-941 tuner
* half-built 2m portable Yagi
* 6m portable Yagi
* 40m wire dipole,fed with 300ohm twinlead
* 4:1 balun
* half-homebrew BuddiPole - commercial center and whips,homebrew arms
* homebrew choke balun for the BuddiPole
* 75AH deep cycle battery which turned out to be dead
* mast - 6 4' hunks of TV mast,guy ropes,tent pegs,hammer
* string and 1-1/4" socket to pull up the dipole into the trees
* plenty of coax and twinlead (but alas, NOT plenty of adapters...)
Saturday morning before start time was spent building a new 6el 2m Yagi, largely patterned after one W4RNL(sk) described in a QST article a while back. Once that was done (and some last minute running around accomplished to buy yet another deep cycle battery and some N-to-PL adapters for the LMR400 feeding the 2m antenna) I got everything set up and ready to go.
Operating the event was largely uneventful, right up until the time I discovered that the TS-430 was even MORE sensitive than the FT-100 to low supply voltage - soon as the battery dropped to about 12.2V, the 430 refused to transmit. So I grabbed the FT-100 out of the car, set it up in place of the 430, and kept right on going. On the Christmas list for this year - one of those MFJ boost regulators!
Now if only I could find the darned logsheets - they're lost in the chaos of my office/hamshack, hopefully not permanently!
The antennas are all up and ready to go. The green wire at top is the 40m dipole. About halfway down you can see the half-homebrew Buddipole stuck to the top of a broom handle velcroed to the mast. |
The VHF antennas - homebrew 4el on 6m, and homebrew 6el on 2m. The 2m Yagi also works semi-effectively on 70cm - the elements are roughly 3/2w, and SWR is low enough not to throw the rig into conniptions. That's one less antenna I have to carry! |
My daughter snagged the camera and caught me hard at it, chasing the contacts. |
Had a great time this year (my 3rd year with the group) and I'm looking forward to 2010. - Carl
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AE5B adjusting the beam. Our low loss hard line made up for the broken reflector. |
K5RLA listening for a weak station while AE5B crashes the logging program. |
Look for the Buena Suerta el Radio Societie in Field Day 2010. We plan on a special QSL featuring the Goat Shed Pavilion. But remember, you will only find us on 6 meters.
ARRL Field Day…where hams get serious about having fun.
Field Day Coordinator
This was the 75th year of the Genesee County Radio Club (MI). We had
a great time and the weather was great also.Everyone enjoyed themselve's and will be back again for more! Our president K8KZB has led the club out of the doldrum's and we have become a vibrant club again. See every-one next year.
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What is the definition of HOT!? Usually every year we have a drenching passing thunderstorm here in Louisiana. Not this year, 107 degrees alongside the Red River in Bossier City LA is the true definition of HOT!
As the sunspot cycle starts comming back to life, our score just keeps improving.
All areas improved over last year. Special thanks to Jason, N5NU. He was amazing, calling CQ with a keyer and carrying on a spoken conversation with you at the same time.
We had all of the usual problems, generator failures, lack of promised operators, the works. BUT!, this is all part of Field Day. The day that Ham radio is tested. After all, disasters are not a planned occurence. Mobilizing a task force to meet the communications needs of any incident will test your metal as ham operators. Field day is where all problems are welcomed so we can test our ability to overcome. I.e., generator failures, lack of promised operators, etc.
Did I mention that we had a fish fry. Without even putting a fire under the grease, it was so hot we almost had to throw some ice cubes into the grease to keep it from over cooking the fish. No, not really, but it was hot. Already getting ready for 2010 FD. 73, Marcel N5VU (Comments to n5vu@arrl.net or n5vu@yahoo.com)
KE4KEM giving the radio merit badge class to a group of scouts in the Dorcas Fire Department engine bay |
Ray Schwartz, the scout commissioner, sent us many thanks for our efforts.
We had 11 hams attending-Cal-W4GMH, Chayne-KI4WBN, Darryl-KE4KEM, Jon-KI4UMT, Richard-KE4BFX, Ron-KI5FR, Bob-KI4MEU, Bob-N4CU, Bob-WA6VVA, Bob-W5RE, and Steve-W6EOD. There were 30 scouts and 3 scout leaders. Our JOTA became a regional event with Scouts and parents coming from Walton, Santa Rosa, Escambia and Okaloosa counties.
Field Day 2009 was a great success. The Fort Armstrong Wireless Association, K3TTK operated as a 3A in the town of Brick Church Pennsylvania. We had two station's working SSB and one working CW. Field Day for us is a great way for the club to gather and operate as one along with some socializing. As usual nobody went hungary thanks to Moe WB3ING's hot sausage, pepper's and onion's. The weather cooperated for most of the weekend. The rain held off until later Saturday night and early Sunday morning.
Thanks to all who worked K3TTK. See you next FD on the radio
73
Michael
KC2EGL
F.A.W.A. K3TTK Field Day Coordinator
This was the first FD effort for our ad hoc group of hams. Of the five who participated, only two had worked Field Day in the past (and used a computer contesting program). Two of the others had been inactive for many years. One of those two has since gotten back on the air.
Setting up at a retired fire station building, we operated 1A using a FT-890 transceiver and a 135 foot inverted L strung between a wooden training/hose drying tower and a tree across the parking lot. The vertical portion of the L was about 35 feet long, and the horizontal portion sloped upward from there to about 50 feet up at the far end. Logging and CW sending was done on a laptop computer and we used a cheap 2-stroke generator to supply power. Remarkably, Murphy decided not to visit us.
IT WAS REALLY HOT! Mid-90s both days, with the sun-baked asphalt parking area in front of the building adding to the heat. Despite all the liquid we downed, we didn't have to make many trips to the restroom :-)
We kept the station going all 24 hours and made 400 CW and 304 phone contacts. The logging software's ratemeter was often above 60/hr, and it helped energize the ops to work 'em fast. We got a lot of the available bonus points as well.
When the results come out in mid-November we will get together and begin planning next year's effort. Next time we'll remember to bring a camera so we can post some pictures like so many of the others have done.
What a great weekend as I reentered field day for the first time in almost 45 years. Many thanks to the Pottstown Area amateur Radio Club in Pottstown, Pa. especially Reg, N3KAS, ED, K3BVQ, Jim, K3CHJ, Jim, K3JJC, and my own Pop N3CYO for mentoring me back into amateur radio. What a thrill very early Sunday morning making contact with W1AW. You'd thought I just entered the promised land. Boy am I looking forwar to next year. Mike KB3OZD
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