ARRLWeb: Her First Field Day

Alessa Adamo, KI6CLO, holding the WA6TOW Field Day Announcement

Mike Bevington, AA6XL, and David Rinck, K6DMR, unload the HF beams.

Traci Bracken, not (yet?) licensed, getting things powered up.

Mike Bevington, AA6XL, and David Rinck, K6DMR, assembling the HF beams.

Portola Expedition monument supporting solar panel.

Raising the 20m Beam. George Tucker, KG6ZDE, Tom Mullarkey, AA6TM, Stephan Mullarkey, KG6EWC, Joe Pistritto, N3CKF and Brian Mullarkey.

Brian Mullarkey, son of Stephan Mullarkey, KG6EWC, driving tent stakes.

George Horbal, KG6VSH, operating solar phone from the van.

Quentae Batiste, KF6OLC, operating HF phone with Ed Freeman, KD6TWK, lending a hand.

Bernie Olshausen, N6RUX, operating solar CW with Jonathan Lancelle, N6SJF, riding shotgun.

William Lillie, N6BCT, operating HF phone with Frank Erbacher, N6FG, riding shotgun.

William Lillie, N6BCT, operating HF phone.

It was a typical June morning in Pacifica, California for our first Field Day event — cool with a light breeze under a brilliant, cloudless sky. The marine layer was still far off in the ocean and the hills to our east beckoned with golden-brown grass swaying gently. My partner Traci and I would set up our Field Day camp on the local 1200 foot peak atop Sweeny Ridge just a few minutes from our apartment on the coast. Imagine a middle-aged city woman, who’d been licensed just over a year, getting excited about camping out overnight. A woman whose previous vision of roughing it was a hotel without a Sleep Number bed.

A trip to Costco was a must; essentials included a tent, cooler, and sleeping bags, folding field table, lanterns. We left with enough food and equipment to sustain a small army for a month. I’d prepared hard, studying all the ARRL articles about Field Day events, especially food recipes. The Coastside Radio Club members discussed strategies for making and logging contacts at the meetings. I studied the computer logging programs, dupe sheets, and the paper backup logs. I practiced my script on my powered off handheld just to get the feel of it. “CQ Field Day, CQ Field Day, this is WA6TOW.” Did I sound authoritative enough?

I rushed around the apartment, not wanting to miss a minute of Field Day. Finally, Traci and I loaded half of our home furnishings into the car for the 24 hour outing. We were ready!

The club members met at the bottom of the hill shortly after sunrise on Field Day. We unlocked the gate and entered with plenty of time to set up the antennas and radios for the 11 AM Pacific Time start. The short trek up the mountain was akin to going back in time — this peak was the very place where San Francisco Bay was officially discovered by Spanish explorers.

I am no stranger to the microclimates of Northern California. Pacifica sits just south of San Francisco on the ocean side of the peninsula and has average temperatures in the 65 degree range year round. Much of the time the town is covered in a thick layer of ocean fog. But a few miles in any direction will yield much higher summer temperatures. On the other side of the coastal mountain range the temperatures can easily reach over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. But our Field Day station atop Sweeny Ridge surprised even me in the velocity and chill of the winds. Where T-shirts and shorts were perfect at the bottom of the hill, I had two shirts and three jackets on at the top. I had so many layers on I could barely get my arms flat against my sides. And I worried about the little nylon tent I had just purchased—would it be a shredded mess by the next morning? The Coastside club veterans had been coming up Sweeny Ridge for Field Day for two decades and more. They said this was one of the nicer days.

We parked the trucks and vans, unloaded the generators and gear, and began setting up the big antennas. All the various parts looked like so many long poles and wires to me. But the guys were patient and taught me how the giant erector set went together. When finished a few hours later we had two giant rotating antennas for the HF radios and one for the FM radio. The HF antennas looked much like our old TV rooftop antennas from the BC (Before Cable) era, only much bigger.

We had one HF radio operating by 11 AM. I was happy to watch and learn from the old-timers who had the honors of taking the early shift. The spinning dials and exotic sounds coming out of the radio speaker all fascinated me. The big dial wheel had an indent on its face, and the operators stuck their fingers in and twirled it until the signal went from something akin to Martian music to an actual voice calling CQ Field Day. It was a marvelous thing to watch. These men were expert conductors of a beautifully strange symphony of static, voices, dits and dahs—real artists at their craft.

There were few visitors atop Sweeny Ridge, but there were those who made the long walk to the top. They stopped and stared at the big rigs, the antennas, and the van and tents filled with amplified voices and computers. We showed them around and they were all impressed, happy to sign our registration logs and help us earn extra points. Then they walked to the granite monument and read the inscription. “From This Ridge The Portola Expedition Discovered San Francisco Bay – November 4, 1769.” The club’s solar panel lay against the edge of the monument, gathering sunlight to supply power to one of the rigs, posing a strange juxtaposition of past and present.

The monument was perhaps, for me, more telling in what it didn’t — what it couldn’t — say. I walked to the west edge of the point and looked out onto my coastal town, jagged rocky cliffs and smooth beaches fighting the onslaught of the relentless cold ocean waters. It was breathtaking. Only a short 30 yards or so to the east end of the point and San Francisco Bay loomed large in the vista below. San Francisco Airport dominated the bay, runways cutting far into the shallow waters. Planes lined up and took off, taking a few seconds to finally get to our altitude.

It was a misty morning over the bay, beautiful and inviting. Buildings, homes, development of all types lined the shores and crawled to the base of the coastal range, but somehow it wasn’t ugly; it held its own kind of beauty. I looked back to the monument, pictured the few surviving men in Portola’s expedition as they stood where I was now standing. What had they seen when looking over the ridge?

I got my first opportunity to work the HF radio several hours later, after the experienced operators had had their fill for a while. I was nervous and excited. I don’t operate the HF bands with my Technician license. I rarely get off the local repeater with my handheld transceiver, the only rig I own. The HF radio sat inside an old canvas tent; it smelled of mold and flapped hard in the wind. But it kept the cold out, and that was good enough. A pot of hot water sat in one corner for instant coffee. Ed, KD6TWK, and Quentae, KF6OLC, were my guides here. They taught me how to hunt signals, how to fine tune, and techniques for answering CQs across the radio waves traveling from distant places.

I got caught in a few pileups with no success. After several frustrating attempts I parked a few megahertz (I think they were megahertz) up the band and began calling CQ, establishing my own signal for others to chase. Patience was necessary, but it was hard not to turn the dial when an answer didn’t come immediately. After nearly 10 minutes it seemed hopeless. I was about to give up when, after my next CQ, I had my first response. “WA6TOW, NF2AR how copy?” We got one! I was so thrilled I forgot what to say. I keyed the mike and read the script the club had prepared—good thing because I completely forgot the phonetic alphabet at that moment. “This is Whisky Alfa 6 Tired Old Woman...” I let the mike button go and looked at Ed. “Who wrote this? That’s not right.” He smiled and shrugged his shoulders. I keyed up again, “I repeat this is Whisky Alfa 6 Tango Oscar Whiskey. We are 2 Alfa, SCV Santa Clara Valley.” “Tired Old Woman we are NF2AR, 3 Alfa, Northern New York. QSL?” “QSL.” “Good luck on Field Day.”

That was it. I’d logged my first contact and there were high-fives all around the tent. It got easier as the day went on. I learned more about HF in that 24 hour period than in all the reading I’d done. It was wonderful fun, addicting, and somehow so exciting. I don’t understand why it is so thrilling to hit a station halfway across the country on these big radios with their giant antennas when I can flip open my cell phone and talk to anyone virtually anywhere just by punching in a few numbers. But it is exciting and wondrous. Maybe it’s because radio is so basic and random, it doesn’t depend on high technology to work.

I finally needed a break and it was time for others to take their turn. I walked back to the ridge line and looked out over the bay. The wind was stronger now and the sky was graying with overcast at our level. Our little tent, erected on the leeward side of some tall bushes, flapped but still stood; I grabbed my rain slicker. That was my fourth coat and last layer. I hoped it wouldn’t get worse. It was easy to get chilled to the bone by the damp fog and wind even on an afternoon in June.

By early evening Traci and I were tired; we slept in our tent as electronic dits and dahs embedded in radio static echoed over the hilltop. We slept lightly, concerned about the wind and fog battering our fragile temporary home. But it stayed up and as the winds eased in the pre-dawn morning, I got up to see about getting more radio time. A soft glow emanated from the van windows on the other side of the hilltop. I went in and they had a small heater running under the table — nice. I pulled off my layers and sat down. The computer log showed nearly 500 phone contacts, not bad for our little club.

Bob, KI6ETJ, sat at the controls and turned the big dial chasing signals. Static predominated, but he found plenty of chatter within. It seemed many stations had pileups of others trying to contact them, and we had no success breaking in. We fixed on a station in Colorado with a strong signal, but lots of other stations were on the same frequency trying to make contact. George gave the mike to me. I decided to stick with it and get our call sign onto the airwaves. I called each time the Colorado station stopped calling CQ, with no luck. Wind whipped the van as dusk made the fog rolling over the peak visible. There was activity outside—guys getting coffee and moving things around. I kept keying the mike trying for the contact. “WA6TOW go ahead.” Bob and I looked at each other with big grins. I gave my information and released the mike key. Colorado began their read-back to confirm the contact. But in the middle of the read-back the radio went quiet and the dials went to zero. The guys outside had disconnected the antenna to begin the takedown. Disappointment, but we took it in stride. We moved to the 20 meter antenna and logged another 10 contacts before calling it a day.

We dismantled our antennas and concluded our Field Day event. It seemed to take longer to tear down our little tent and pack up the six day supply of food and equipment we’d barely touched. But it had been a good day. I’d known small failures and successes this trip. I learned a lot — we have some great Elmers in our club—and they have their hands full with me.

With hands tucked deep in my pockets against the cold I looked out over the bay one last time. I’d been told by one of the guys that all that static on the radio was background noise left over from the Big Bang—when the universe was born some 14 billion years ago. Could that be so? Somehow that made the ghosts of Portola’s expedition seem closer to my present. I experienced the satisfaction of my own successful expedition, and felt a kinship to those tough Spaniards who’d come before me. The guys were busy tying down the rigs on top of the van; it was time for us to go. I patted the monument, waved to them and shouted as I started down the hill. “Thanks, everybody! 73.”

[Field Day club station WA6TOW scored 2100 points from 521 QSOs with 16 operators. — Ed.]

Alessa Adamo received her Technician license in February 2006 and went on the air with her first radio, a Yaesu VX-6, in April 2007. She is a member of the Coastside Amateur Radio Club in Pacifica, California and uses her radio for her job in emergency preparedness. Alessa is Program Director for San Francisco CARD (Community Agencies Responding to Disaster), an agency providing disaster preparedness training and resources to San Francisco nonprofits. She lives a quiet life on the coast with her partner, Traci, and their two cats Whipped Cream and Cream Puff.