06/24/2007 | W9ILF Ivin W9ILF and I were holed up at Johnson County Park near Franklin Indiana,
which is 20 minutes away from my home. We left my house loaded for Field
Day at about 1PM. We got a late start because it was raining..and we were
waiting for it to stop for a few minutes so we could drive to the park and
get situated. I think the first official station in the logbook was N4TP
from WCF at 19:11Z...so a little after 3PM local. The sun came out and all
was well. I was working 20m with my PAC-12 and the KX1 and managed to work
both coasts and top to bottom of the US with about 4 watts...very nice,
things were getting good. Ivin had his IC703, PAC-12 and G5RV, and we
started working 80m with that at about 7PM. The QIN net came up at 8PM and
we had to wait an HOUR to get our RADIOGRAM sent to the IN section manager.
By that time, the rain started again, and man it poured. So we stayed on
80m and had a great run going until we finally quit for the night somewhere
near 1AM. I drove home and slept in my bed, Ivin slept in his tent at the
campsite, enjoying the pitter patter of a thunderstorm. We were officially
visited by Don West W9DEW and Andy Murrey N9AWM.

Murphy was ever present. We had intended to run PSK...I brought my laptop,
Ivin had his rigblaster...I forgot the computer power supply and my laptop
battery won't hold a charge. We had hot dogs, but we forgot the grill. We
were going to take pictures, but forgot the camera. We had coffee, I forgot
my cup...but that's OK...we were about out of fuel for the stove anyway.
Video tape of me trying to throw a rock with a rope tied to it would be
priceless, and very embarassing...Ivin tried to show me the "between the
legs" rope throwing trick and almost broke his ankle when he hit himself in
the ankle with a rock, what had a rope tied around it. Somehow we managed
to get that G5RV almost 20 feet off the ground...it worked 80m very well for
us. It was raining still. Andy N9AWM saved our life at about 11:30PM on
Saturday night, he brought us a grill and my laptop power supply....so we
ate hot dogs in the pouring rain...and watched it lightning...while we
worked 80m for all we were worth.

At 6:30AM I went back to camp and we worked a few more stations on 80m and
40m with the PAC-12 and the G5RV, dining on a fine selection of grilled
smoked turkey sausage, and hot coffee...we called Diz (W8DIZ) on the phone
and tried to work him on 20m..but nothing doing. Diz checked WX radar for
us and advised us that it would be raining for about 40 more days and 40
more nights...so we took the non-raining opportunity and packed up and
pulled out at about 10:30 this morning.

All in all we scored 790 points. Weeeee and had even more fun.

We hope to be with the Flying Pigs next year.

73 -- KB9BVN