I was thinking about 2012 Field Day in January and February,   but it sort of sneaked up on me in June.     Was considering a mobile class 1C  operation but could not get the SWR down on my 40 meter mobile antenna.    Not having too much confidence in the 40 meter mobile antenna compared to my QTH  full size 80 meter dipole,  I decided to do a 1E  op  rather than try to fix the mobile antenna.    Working with the WB4MZO Wedixie  ARC many years up to 2010,  I have found that securing a public property portable site needs to be done much earlier than June.     Not many of us own suitable land or have friends or relatives with suitable land, so permission needs to be obtained early.     So I used my residential lot.

The propagation was not too good on 40 meter SSB where I made 25 QSOs  in about 9.5 hours of operating.      My rig is a Yaesu FT-897D  rated at 100 Watts.     I tried 80 meters for about 15 minutes with no success.     My 6800 Watt 120V/240V generator was a little too noisy to run all night,   but I  cranked it up Sunday after church services in addition to Saturday afternoon.

With nothing special except to fire up the generator engine and unplug the power supply from the wall outlet and into the extension cord from the generator  --  one might think that would be very safe.     WRONG !!   After running a while on a still and hot day, I was surprised when the combo smoke and carbon monoxide detector  alarmed -- audibly indicating carbon monoxide.     So  I immediately shut down the generator, turned on the roof exhaust fan on the porch between the generator, and room, and changed the window fan from intake to exhaust in the operating room.     I fired up the generator and had no more problems.      My  smoke and CO  detector had been replaced in the last year.     The CO detector has a life of seven years and the smoke detector ten years,   so be sure to check your manufacturing date when you change batteries.

    73,   Warren.