07/25/2005 | K0GQ Special Note: At the time this was written, our very own seventeen year old Rebecca Rich KBVT was honored as the recipient of the annual ARRL Hiram Percy Maxim Memorial Award. Rebecca received the award for her accomplishments in academics, participation or leadership in organizational affairs, amateur radio operating activities, public relations activities, and for community service and involvement. We at KQ are very proud of her accomplishments.

Please see the following link for the full story:

http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2005/07/20/3/?nc=1

Please see the following link for more information about Rebecca:

http://www.qrz.com/kb0vvt

KQ 2A MO in Raytown, Missouri


A few miles southeast of Arrowhead stadium, the home of the Kansas City Chiefs, is the yearly Field Day staging grounds of the fiery little club that uses the callsign KQ and the exchange Two Alpha Missouri. The Raytown Amateur Radio Club (RARC) eleven man and woman squad generates more Field Day offense than most any other 2A or bigger Field Day teams in the nation. Talk about fan support, our 12th man on the Field consists of the wonderful group of men and women in the community that drop by to give us a hand or to cheer us on. We regularly receive support from Raytown Mayor Sue Frank, along with Aldermen such as Barbara Schlapia, Christine White, and our very own Ken Brown, KBNR. The RARC is very serious about Field Day. Like the Kansas City Chiefs, the RARC likes to run up the score with explosive plays. The RARC operates a contest style HF CW station, HF Phone station along with a VHF/UHF station. Our special teams recruit young people, operate a satellite tracking station, copy the W1AW report, and make contacts using natural power. We have trick plays such as an Amateur Television (ATV), Packet, and Automatic Position Reporting System (APRS) demonstrations. To keep our fans happy, we have a Get On The Air (GOTA) station with amateur radio information and a sign-in sheet. To top it off we have a social gathering area and sleep tent. We operate a tough Field Day because we feel that this is the level of intensity that well be required if a real emergency should occur.

Preliminary Field Day Preparation

The RARC President Paul Watts KCDZ, Joel Grieshaber KCLZ have been working very hard building a mobile radio command post from what started out as a boat trailer. This structure has been used to house the VHF/UHF station for the past couple of years. Weeks before Field Day, Paul and Joel designed and built a system of supports and brackets to mount a 38 foot crank-up tower. They spent many hours cutting steel, welding, and painting. Paul performed this task along with the annual gathering of equipment, cabling, and antennas.

Along with helping Paul, Joel was making repairs to his rotator that failed to operate during Field Day last year. As the captain of the GOTA station, Joel gathered his FT-847, antenna tuner, Cushcraft A4 Tri-bander, vertical antenna, cabling, laptop, as well as other things in preparation for Field Day. Each year, Joel has also provided the use of his utility trailer as well as secured a camper trailer from his sister for use as the GOTA station. This year, however, Joel volunteered the camper trailer to be used for the HF phone station. Joel had a surprise up his sleeve concerning the GOTA station.

The RARC Vice President Eric Cartner ABA spent time before Field Day preparing the APRS and Packet demonstrations. Eric also grouped some camera equipment to bring to Field Day. He has taken some very fine photographs of our Field Day operation for the last couple of years. Some of his handy work can be viewed at the following link: http://ab0wa.smugmug.com/gallery/620745

Steve Lufcy KU, the RARC Field Day Commander, spent the week before Field Day gathering the sections for the 40 foot aluminum Universal Tower, HF and satellite radios, rotators, Cushcraft A3 Tri-bander, 432 Yagi, 2 meter Yagi, 6 meter Yagi, cabling and other things. Steve was the captain of the HF CW station along with being the main person that oversees the entire Field Day operation.

Over at the Reicher residence, Jim N8AU was busy at his home station, the weekend before Field Day, replacing some tower sections and the boom on his Yagi which was damaged during a winter ice storm. When he was not busy repairing his home station, Jim was gathering antennas, rotators, top tower section, computers, and computer tracking software to operate the RARC satellite station.

Ken Brown KB0ZNR, Raytown Alderman, prepared for Field Day by assembling a tent, cookout supplies, and testing out the wench on the front of his Jeep that we used to raise and lower some of our towers. Kens political presence has helped to ensure that the field used behind City Hall is mowed before Field Day weekend. For the past couple of years, Ken has been instrumental in gaining permission from the city of Raytown to use the Emergency Response Vehicle for the HF CW station. Ken has also educated the city government on the importance of Amateur radio especially in the time of crisis. His hard work has resulted in the RARC being awarded a proclamation by the city last year for such good work during the Field Day weekend. This year, the city of Raytown issued a proclamation to the RARC and proclaimed the weekend of June 25, 2005 as Amateur Radio Weekend.

The Rich family was busy with several activities in preparation for the Field Day weekend. Dave Rich KGS, the captain of the HF phone station, was installing and checking out a wireless network on the HF CW, HF Phone, and VHF/UHF computers. This turned into a major chore because the HF CW and VHF/UHF computers had strange processes running on them and they needed to be cleaned. The simplest solution was to FDISK them and to re-install a fresh operating system on each of them. This would be the first time a wireless network had been tried at the KQ Field Day site. Daves major concern was with the possibility of front-end overload in the network card receivers caused by much higher powered radios transmitting equipment being nearby during Field Day. Daves concern faded when the network appeared to function properly while his daughter Rebecca operated using a Kilo Watt amplifier during Kids Day a few weeks before Field Day.

Rebecca performed her annual task of writing and presenting Field Day articles to local newspapers, as well as writing public officials to invite them to Field Day. She even wrote President Bush and invited him to our Field Day operation. Rebecca, along with her mother Barbara KGT and father Dave KGS, decided to go out on a limb and try to generate more amateur radio community support for our RARC Field Day operation. Using their own personal funding and hard work, the Rich family decided to mail a personal invitation to 160 amateur radio households in our local area. The invitation was written by Rebecca and was titled "Rediscover Amateur Radio." The letter invited the 160 amateur households to attend Field Day and to attend the last Pre-Field Day planning meeting on June 16, 2005. Unfortunately, after all the additional work and expense of preparing 160 letters, only 3 additional people came to the Pre-Field Day planning meeting. Our meeting was blessed by the addition of Robin Cross WEN, Dave Libby KCS (now KCL), and Floyd Delon WAP. As it turns out, there were several people from our area that signed in at the GOTA station so perhaps our letter did encourage at least some additional participation.

This year, Dave KGS wanted to try out the new 80 and 40 meter Cushcraft MA8040V vertical on the HF phone station. Rebecca spent several hours assembling the new antenna. Dave also wanted to see if there was any 160 meters activity during Field Day, so he purchased a Alpha Delta DX-A sloper along with 150 foot of coax to handle the extra antennas. This was in addition to the Cushcraft A3 Tri-bander and Cushcraft R7 vertical that are supplied for Field Day. Then there was the computer, 2 HF radios, wireless router, 2 Dunstar Model 600 Bandpass filters, cabling, and other items. Last but not least, we also transported a 25 element 432 MHz beam for Paul to use on the VHF/UHF station. To haul all of this stuff, we removed the 3rd seat out of the Suburban, folded down the remaining back seats, and filled the truck up with stuff with antennas placed outside on the luggage racks.

Field Day Setup

Once you spend a few years participating in Field Day, you will discover that there are quite a number of amateur radio operators that prefer to help setup and teardown but they do not want to operate during the Field Day event. While, at first, it does not seem logical for an amateur radio operator not to want to operate, one should remember that there are many reasons to become an amateur radio operator and doing a contest style operation may not be some peoples "cup of tea." Besides, we would not be able to do our Field Day without them. The author just have not figured out a way to talk them into doing all the setup and teardown while we operators just operate. Hi Hi Each year Jim Pietschmann KCMC and sometimes his unlicensed wife Janet BS drop by to lend a hand. Chuck Palmer NNN faithfully comes by to help during the weekend. For the past couple of years, Ken Brown KBNR has provided local political support as described above along with at least one tent and assistance setting up and tearing down during the weekend. He was even seen grilling a few hamburgers on Saturday afternoon.
Then there is our big showman, Lee Ward KW, who has managed to help us out with big equipment for the past three years. Lee is kind of like sporadic-E propagation in the summer. You know you are going to get it, but you are not completely sure when or how much. Well, this year, Lee came to Field Day setup comfortably early and big with a 72 foot US Tower Mobile Tower Unit complete with Yaesu rotator and control box. Thank you very much Mr. Ward!

We had some of the usual problems during Field Day setup. The rotator for the CW station did not initially work. The source of the problem was due to frayed wires shorting. We also had problems hooking up the Yaesu rotator for the HF phone station. The only instructions that Lee left us with was that the rotator wired up like the resistor color code. Well, there were two rows of connections to wire up. Eventually, we were able to get it to work properly. There were other problems that we were eventually able to work out.

Field Day Operation

The HF CW station was staffed almost exclusively by seventeen year old Rebecca KBVT and Steve KU. Between the two of them, they racked up over 1400 QSOs.

The HF Phone station was staffed primarily by Dave KGS, Barb KGT, and Joe Dietrick KCOX. Joe was our new guy at the HF station this year. Last year, during his first Field Day, Joe got his feet wet by helping out on the GOTA station. This year he wanted to go to the big leagues and did a fine job. Every year Dave intends that he will do a big chunk of the operating only to fall way short of his participation predictions. Perhaps all the pre-Field Day preparation and setup out in the hot sun zaps it out of him. He even threatened to have a phone operating schedule to ensure time slots for the main operators. Unfortunately, Barb ended up operating throughout most of the night because Joe and Dave pooped out and we did not have a schedule. Next year we will have a schedule! Together, the HF phone team were able to make a little over 1000 QSOs.

Paul KCDZ and Eric ABA had the thankless job of running the VHF/UHF station during Field Day. Paul must be a patient man to put all the work into the station, as described earlier, to only get around 50 QSOs. We need a 6 meter band opening during Field Day! We did discover a little bit of a problem with coax cables and antennas this year. We have analyzers and 50 Ohm loads, so checking antennas and cables needs to be added to the check list that Eric started this year. Thanks guys for hanging in there again this year.

Jim N8AU, with some help from Dave KCS, Jim KCMC, and Robin WEN, should have known that Murphy was going to attack in full force when he initially found that he would not have a shelter for the satellite station. Well, he was able to get a shelter from Joel KCLZ, but that would not protect him from the problems that would follow. They were using Steves IC-910H that has a problem where the display frequency is somewhat off from the actual transmitted frequency. They were also forced to take the top tower section down several times to work on the rotators during the weekend. They were able to hear many satellite passes, but at the same time, they were not able to hear themselves in the satellite. The single QSO they made was perform by using the FT847 in the VHF/UHF station. The lesson learned is that one can not expect to just put a satellite station together from scratch and expect to make a lot of contacts. It probably takes hours, weeks, if not months of practice to get good at this type of operation. The good thing is that we got our bonus points.

We had a big surprise at the GOTA station this year. Joel KCLZ was able to sweet talk Missouri Department of Transportation manager Warren Roberts into securing the Mobile Emergency Response Operations Center (MEROC) trailer for use as the GOTA station. This is a big trailer and it has a generator and 75 foot crank-up tower. We could have housed at least 3 of our stations in there but Joel wanted the new toy all to himself. Joel, John Outland K3FP, and Joe Watts KCNB did most of the operating. We had several guests that checked-in and or operated including visually impaired operators Jose Lopez NMC and Reggie George KCSI. Reggie made a few CW contacts and a photo of Jose operating made the Raytown Tribune newspaper. The GOTA team was able to make 303 QSOs.

Each year we never quite make the 400 QSO limit for the GOTA station. Some think it is because the GOTA is limited by the HF CW and HF phone stations. On the surface, this seems reasonable but other 2A clubs seem to make their 400 QSOs. This author feels that the problem may be two fold: 1.) We almost exclusively use phone, which takes away much of the bandwidth that we could be sharing with the two other HF stations. 2.) We are using a FT847 without any optional filters. The harsh environment with two nearby HF stations may be just too much for the stock FT847 selectivity.

Conclusion

Our small team put in another stellar effort in the very competitive 2A catagory. We should make it into the Top 10 nationally.

We will see you all again next year. Good Luck! -- KG0US