07/01/2004 | N0EW Dwayne wb5plj and I operated two-man portable (1B MO). We set up in a public park named Fellows Lake just north of Springfield, MO, which was quite nice. This was our second year at this site. The weather was great! Last year it was very, very hot and the bug count was sky-high. This year almost no bugs were present.

We were visited by our local Director of the Office of Emergency Management, and about half-dozen curious people over the weekend. Many will openly stare while driving by, but not many will come over even when waved at by us. We handed out information about amateur radio in general and each of the local clubs (there are three to my knowledge). One of the items I suggest to others is an area map that shows where each field day site is located. Be sure to include talk-in frequencies. If possible make this one of your hand-outs that visitors may take with them. This improves the chances that people will drive around and visit each site. We are all in this together you know!

This year we waited for the stroke of 1 PM to begin set-up. With just the two of us working and temperatures only in the high 70's it took us 5 hours and 10 minutes to begin operating, including breaks. We have observed a number of improvements that should reduce this amount of time by a wide margin. The biggest area of improvement will be in setting up the 80-M loop. This took us half our set up time. Upon reflection be believe we will be able to do this next year in about 30-minutes, as opposed to 2 1/2 hours. Our two biggest lost-time areas was laying out the placement of the masts and in assembling the masts themselves (which were 5-foot 1.25" gray TV mast sections). These mast sections are NOT designed to be used for temporary deployments. They can be difficult to get together and to later separate. Lubrication is highly recommended on all joints. One could also use the 2" military masts, but I don't think they would be much faster and you will not gain much height above 30-feet (based upon past tests, I only comfortable with about 44-feet and certainly 48-feet maximum with mil-masts).

Speed clips for the guy-ring attachment and small plywood "feet" and a centering spike did help speed up the deployment of the masts as compared to last year. Basically, any knot tieing, hammering or use of tools results in lost-time. My advise to others is to brainstorm ways you can eliminate these steps. To the degree you succeed, you will speed up your deployment. This is not overly critical for field day, unless you work under the 27-hour rules, but for real emergencies speed is of the essence! Carefully storing your antenna wires so they will freely spool out is also very important. If you end up with a knot of 300-feet of wire you can lose many, many hours untangling knots!

Next year I will hope to be able to suggest a quick and easy method of deploying a full wave 80-meter loop.

Our phone antenna was a full wave 80-meter loop at 30-foot height, and it worked very well. This is the same antenna we used last year and what we intend to use next year as well. We also attempted a satellite contact, but were only able to hear other stations (we've only been playing with satellites for about one month and apparently need more practice, hi-hi). We used our loop for the 10-meter downlink for AO-7, and a 2m/70cm quagi made from PVC and # 12 THHN wire for other satellite attempts. We did have a 2-meter talk-in station with a roll-up j-pole hung at 20-feet (supported by a fishing pole). The 2M talk-in was set up along side the satellite station. Our primary phone station was set up to the left of these stations.

Communications Equipment: Phone: Icom-756ProII (very nice); Satellite: Icom-706MKiiG and Icom-746; 2-Meter talk-in: Icom-2100H in an ammo can (internal 35-AH battery). We used a generator to power everything except the 2-M talk-in station.

We also had giant hats! These are great for providing personal shade. Along with copious amounts of sunscreen and bug spray a team should be well protected from the elements. Add a rain coat, wool blankets, tarp for the equipment, and an extra pair of shoes and socks and call it good-to-go!

It was great fun, and we both look forward to seeing improvement next year. Should anyone have any questions please feel free to visit my web site or send me an email (www.n0ew.org / n0ew@arrl.net). -- N0EW