08/06/2007 | KI7T Field Day 2007 NG7Z and KI7T

John Gerke KI7T and I go way back to the 60s. He was WN7DGW and I was WN7CXH in 65. Back then you had to pass your General test within one year of receiving your novice ticket. He passed on the first try and it took me three times before I got WA7FOS. Anyway, weve kept in sporadic contact over the years and when a mutual friend invited us to his wedding, we struck up a renewed friendship and decided to do FD together this year. He lives over on the islands and was familiar with that area so he suggested a spot overlooking Hood Canal just south of Brinnon up in the foothills of the Olympics.

What a spectacular view and a fabulous spot to do ham radio. We choose to be 1B although we could have had two radios going, one on HF and the other VHF. But it turned out just fine doing one radio. We logged by hand, he doing phone and I doing CW. His CW is a bit rusty but he could copy calls and exchanges with a bit of help. We put up a Force12 40XK vertical dipole, a balanced line fed 40M dipole and a couple of VHF beams.


The weather co-operated with cool temps generally and lots of sun and beautiful cloud formations. It was stunning to watch the morning sunrise. Sunday morning was very cloudy and it did rain some. But by 11AM it stopped and we packed up dry. As expected we had a few bumps in terms of setting up. I brought a new 1800W generator but it spewed off so much RFI it was useless. I had intended to log with my laptop that only works on 110V AC. So we used the trailer battery instead and hand logged.


We had a total of 216 contacts. 115 CW and 98 phone. I got a chance to try out a new 6 meter beam I bought from M2 and Johns 40M dipole which worked very well for such a simple antenna. I had a terrible headache on Saturday which kept me on the couch most of the day. But John kept at it shuttling between the HF and VHF stations making contacts.

As usual, Mr. Murphy paid us a visit. We got a report that our phone signal was distorted. John pulled out his trusty VOM and found a 2-3 volt drop between the battery box and the electrical panel. So he brought the deep cycle battery into the trailer and hooked it up directly to the radio. Bingo, no more distortion.

The road up to the spot was very rough going. John brought the trailer up on Thursday night and I arrived mid afternoon on Friday to start setting up. We were ready to go by 11AM Saturday.
This was a great experience for both of us as we shared time together and reminiscing. But it was interesting that we didnt spend a lot of time telling about our lives. Our common goal was ham radio and Field Day and thats the glue that made it well worth the effort. -- NG7Z