07/05/2006 | K0CD (Cathy, N5WVR).

This was my first Field Day. It's also the first time that I've helped erect freestanding, guyed antennas, as opposed to those attached to a house or hanging in a tree. Since my CW speed is still pretty slow, I mainly helped with logging and antennas, and only worked two QSOs personally. The experience was interesting and I look forward to doing it again after my code speed has risen enough to be comfortable with the QRQ operators who dominate the bands.

(Phil N0OE)

The July meeting of the Minnesota QRP Society was held at the 2006 Field Day site of Rob, K0CD's QTH, near Hudson, WI. We missed seeing some of our regular attendees, but there were a number of new faces that dropped in. All in all, we had a GREAT time.

The real business started on Friday night as we each got ready for the big weekend and arrived at Rob's place around 9AM Saturday morning. After the antennas, operating shelters, and equipment were set up we had our first "adjournment" of the day when the lighting and thunder rolled in.

Through out the weekend several hams from the St Croix radio club came by, helped, and visited. By my rough count, there were six club members that dropped by and contributed to the fun. We had about five hams from the St. Croix group that came by and participated in the operations. It was fun to watch hams try out HF operations and get excited about making CW contacts. We had about six guests drop by, watch, ask questions, and in some cases participate with the help of a control operator. We had a little eight year old girl come into the tent and do a QSO. At first she said "I am not talking into that thing!" but with a little coaxing we had her calling "CQ CQ CQ from Kilo Zero Charlie Delta Helping her key the mic and log the QSO was one of several Highlights that will be remembered about this Field Day weekend for a while.

Mert, W0UFO, Craig, AA0ZZ, and Cathy, N5WVR all came by and helped us resolve some antenna problems. They also helped round up some QSOs for the log! The estimates are that we had more QSOs than we have had for several years.

I just want to thank everyone who helped plan this Field Day, whether you made a visit to the site or not, It was a lot of fun!!! I think each of us learned some lessons that hopefully we can apply to improve future events.

submitted by> -- K0CD