W6CX Field Day

By Larry Loomer, KI6LNB

The Mount Diablo Amateur Radio Club (MDARC) Field Day event was held at Heather Farm Park in Walnut Creek, California on June 22 and 23, 2019.

Setup was begun on Friday, June 21 in the early afternoon. The MDARC Van and the MDARC Trailer were brought to the designated parking lot and positioned for operation.  Personal popups were set up and the MDARC tent was laid out and assembled.  Once the trailer was set up with two HF antennas and the trailer's solar array to charge the trailer battery, FT-8 communication was begun.  The van was set so that Amateur Television (ATV) communication could be made with North Peak of Mt. Diablo.  A 40 meter dipole was strung from the van's mast to two nearby anchor points.

Late in the afternoon the solar trailer of Charles Henry KG6PHZ, arrived on site.  Charles positioned it to take full advantage of the morning sun and the afternoon sun that flooded the parking lot.  A crew was put together  to assemble all of the pieces of the solar system that were stored on the trailer.  Once the supporting frame was assembled, the solar panels were placed on the frame.  There are 12 solar panels, 5 - 250 watt plus 7 - 265 watt, for a total of 3106 watts, or 3.1 Kw.  The connecting wires were daisy-chained together and connected to the four mppt 60 amp controllers that were mounted in their own air cooled box on the trailer.  New this year was a box to cover the 30 - 110 amp hour deep-cycle batteries that came with the trailer, and a 2500 watt inverter for producing 120 volts AC from the 12 volt DC batteries.

In the evening pizza was served for dinner, and practice contacts were being made.

The next morning breakfast was served and set up continued.  At 11:00 AM, the Field Day operations began.  Jim K6SOE was on 40 Meters and Mike W6MEW was operating FT-8 Digital on 20 meters and 40 meters. 

Two ARRL Radiograms were received via 2 meter FM and were delivered to their recipients in person.

At 1:00 PM, there was license testing at Field Day.  We had 5 new Technicians, 3 new Generals and one new Extra licensee.  It was a successful session.  The VEs were Jim Turnbull WW1ACE, Mike Patterson N6JGA, and Jim Brunk N6BHX who came from the Martinez Amateur Radio Club Field Day site to be at our license testing session.

During the afternoon, Pete Harris KE6ZIW was busy demonstrating his Buddipole antenna and showing visitors how to set it up and tune it for the various HF frequencies.  He provided ham radio education and promotion to the many visitors that stopped by his ham radio setup.

In the late afternoon, the BBQ was started and the tri-tip was picked up from Kinder's.  Dick Wade WM6G was the chef on the BBQ, and he received many compliments on his meat preparation work.  Terry Buxton KK6KGX prepared the food and supervised its presentation to the hams that were present for the BBQ.  She supervised the food activities for the entire Field Day period as well.  Dick Wade WM6G also handled the Visitors' Log and the Information Booth.

After dinner,, operations continued.  Matthew Vurek N4DLA came over from the Lamorinda Amateur Radio Interest Group Field Day site to join MDARC and operated with us into the night.  Sunday morning dawned with plenty of reserve power in the solar trailer batteries to power the remaining hours of Field Day activities.  The FT-8 station continued operating into the morning.

At 11:00 AM on Sunday morning, the Field Day operations came to a close.

After the lunch was served, the hams did a great job of packing things and getting them ready to be removed from the site.  A group of hams took apart the Solar Trailer and readied it for being transported to the next location where it would become the center attraction for its ability to generate off-grid power.  The MDARC tent was dismantled and the Trailer was packed up for return to its resting place.  Hams took down the MDARC van's antennas and put them away for the next time that the van would be called into service.  A thorough inspection of the site was made for trash.

Mike Patterson N6JGA and Jim Tittle K6SOE were the Field Day safety officers.