Big Gun Under The Big Sky

By Rod Jackson / AE7JJ / Great Falls MT

Question: What do you get when you combine a 125’ man lift and a 4 element 20 Meter Mono Beam?  Answer: One Big Gun antenna under the Big Sky of Montana.  For Field Day 2011, members of the Great Falls Area Amateur Radio Club (GFAARC) took a bold approach to improve our ability to make contacts on Field Day as well as garner some extra attention from the public at our site at the local Walmart.  Through the kind donation of the big lift for the weekend from our local Midway Rental, our club set a new internal record for contacts on a single field day station.  Our CW team made a total of 643 contacts during the 24 hour event.  As a category 2F operation, we kept our CW station simple and only used a Yeaseu FT-450 running at 100 watts.  A MartinMachine  auto keyer did help our team keep up with the constant number of contacts coming back to Montana from all over the US and foreign locations to include the Virgin Islands and Mexico. 

Using a simple installation method used successfully for many previous years on smaller lifts, our team installed a single 10’ section of tower top onto the work platform of the lift.  We used several large u-bolts with cross clamps to build a sturdy foundation for the beam.  Speaking of the beam, we used a 40 year old Hy-Gain 204BA four element 20 Meter mono bander.  Given its overall age and the fact that it has been in storage for over 5 years on our antenna trailer, this set up achieved fantastic results right out of the box.  Once every thing was assembled, we simply used the ground controls on the lift to place the antenna up at about 95’ for operations.  We did have to watch the winds to make sure we did not exceed safe operating limits for the lift (25 knots), but the weather cooperated and we never had to lower the rig for the entire operating period.  Even though we had a heavy duty rotator in place, we rarely had to move the beam off of the South East.

While several members of the club helped keep the CW station going during the event, Eric Martin  (K7ABV) and Ray Whitney (AE7JN) helped carry a majority of the load.  In talking with them at the close of field day activities, both remarked at how well the entire set up worked and how much fun they both had just reeling in the contacts as fast as they could send an acknowledgement.

In the end, the “Big Gun” antenna set up was a great success.  It improved our operating capability and also got us more attention from the public who could see this thing for three miles in any direction.  Even a local TV station came and did a nice segment on the club and our “large” innovation for Field Day.  Along with this being a fun thing to do for Field Day, setting up the man lift as basically a portable tower was a very good experience for the future.  Given our mostly remote and rural setting here in Montana, testing out this concept gave us good insight in how to use available resources to build capability during an emergency.  If we ever do have a major catastrophic disaster here in North Central Montana, we now have a new tool in our kit.