07/22/2007 | W7MRG The Machias Radio Group's Field Day 2007 included the entire membership (Steve N4SL & Mike WB7FJG) with the addition of Evan N7MCG, Brian N7RVD, Jim WA7WET, and myself WA7PRC. We ran 2A (2 HF + 1 VHF) in Lord Hill Regional Park (Snohomish, WA). Steve & Mike ran 'em on CW in Tent1, while Evan & I worked 'em on fone in Tent2. Brian & Jim floated between tents.

Old Man Murphy seemed to be active for us at the Machias Radio Groupe (aka 'Manic Radio Geeks') camp. In Tent1 (CW), Steve & Mike forgot to bring their 80m antenna, and made-do with the 40m antenna and a tuner. Setup wasn't finished before nightfall on Friday, they had to finish Saturday morning.

In Tent2 (fone), I forgot to bring the spreaders for the 80m inverted vee (necessitating a dash home). Then, assembling & installing the A3S yagi and forgetting to attach a midpoint guy rope necessitated lowering the tilt-up mast to correct them. We weren't operational until late Friday night. Equipment interfacing issues made us use Brian's DVK instead of the RigBlaster. However, with 320Ah of battery + DC-DC boost regulators, power was *not* an issue (and no droning generator)! Mother nature was kind enough to not bake us during setup, and held the rain until the wee hours Sunday morning. She again relented during tear-down.

Unlike past FDs, I recall we seemed to work many stations in MT & WY, as well as quite a few 1C stations. Solar activity being poor, I wasn't surprised we had no Qs on 10m, and just a few on 15m. 80, 40, and 20m were our mainstays. Steve N4SL comments, "I was amazed we worked 792 Q's, that was very good."

A plethora of images and a cool 50 second video clip can be found at http://www.geocities.com/bswadener/fd2007/

Lastly, thanks to Evan's YL Rhonda for handling chef duty (when she wasn't helping w/ antenna setup & tear-down). You were an important part of a satisfying FD!


73,

Bryan -- WA7PRC