06/29/2007 | K8DF This Field Day started off on Friday about 5 PM when most of us showed up on Lowndes Hill directly behind the YMCA on the grassy noll to start setting up the antennas.
Lowndes Hill is a historical area containing Civil War entrechment overlooking Clarksburg, WV at 1338 ft above sea level.
When we arrived John (NW8U) and his son (KC8RIP)were there and had the tower up with the tribander installed on the north end of the site. We completed the stringing of the 80 meter inverted V and a 40 meter dipole. When the antenna installation was completed everyone went home to get their last night of uninterrupted sleep until Monday.

We all arrived around 9 AM on Saturday and proceeded to set up all of the shelters and tables for Field Day. We found we only had two shelters so we made a run home to pick up another shelter. Unknown to most, the shelter was new and had no directions telling us how to put it together. After a couple hours of lots of twisting and turning and putting things together we old gents took some instruction from the resident teenagers and finally got the last shelter up.

We installed four operation positions including computers for the task of logging. One station was dedicated to CW, the next to 20 meters SSB. The third was set up to operate SSB on 40 and 80. The fourth position was dedicated to GOTA.

We also put up another tower with a tribander dedicated to the CW station.

When 2 PM rolled around we were ready, NW8U and KV8S were our CW operators. N8FXH was the first 20 SSB operator being assisted by N3CXD logging. Operators traded on and off most of the day on 80 and 40 and later in the evening also took over 20 meters.

The GOTA started out with KD8FLI (48 contacts) with coach K8TPH. During the day, later other operators took over and operated the GOTA station, KD8FDD (47 contacts), KB8ABS (3 contacts). Later in the day KB8WSX took over and made 283 contacts running most of the night until the next morning. KB8WSX was also our resident computer tech keeping the computers going.

Other operators manning the stations and logging were:
WD8NSC, W9AFC, KC8FWD, WV3WLC, KD8FOH, KA5NYN , KB8RIA, KC8RIQ, KC8RIP, N8YPE, KO3E. John, N8ZQD dropped by just to give us that extra nudge and lots of moral support.

Later in the evening Brad Bowden local news reporter from WDTV Channel 5 TV came by to take a few pictures for the local evening news. Many thanks to WDTV for promoting our Field Day operations.

N8YPE created a feast fit for a king to serve all of the workers around 7 PM and the meal was really enjoyed by all participates.

The night was long and unlike the beautiful day on Saturday, the temperature dropped a little and became a little cool. The old bones just did not appreciate the cool damp night air, but we made it through until the sun came up and Sunday turned into a beautiful day also.

N8YPE, Dave, out did himself with breakfast. Pancakes, sausage, eggs to order and lots of hot coffee. Things were running very well on Sunday morning when all of a sudden the main backup computer went south. The only thing we could get the computer to do was to tell us the Hard Drive was corrupted. After some panic, KB8WSX got our his recovery software and then removing the hard drive and placing it into one of the other computers. He managed to recover the data file. We logged by hand during the computer outage and when the data file was restored we finished our logging for the day.

Of course, we had to do everything in reverse and put things away until next year.

A link to pictures taken during Field Day 2007 can be found on the http://www.sjara.org All the pictures are complements of our young but very competent photographer, Tyler Hollandsworth, age 9 using grandpa's camera. I want to thank him because I just didn't have the time to take pictures. Hope to see you all in 2008.
Submitted by -- K8TPH