07/01/2003 | N0FP Field Day @ N0FP was a blast! In prior years, FD was often a collection of tents and sundry radio equipment pasted together to make a weekend of radio, with interludes of eating, visiting, and other activities. This year was different.

Beginning last year, the group was resolved to post a better score. Actually attempt to book Qs at a contest rate. With all the participants out there, posting a huge score would be a bunch of fun. Well, we never got to the "huge" stage but we sure had fun.

The group designed a new generator and built it from the remains of a snow blower. This generator would run the radios by charging deep cycle batteries. A 5 HP motor attached to a Delco "one wire" alternator did the trick. Located 25 feet from the operating position, that much current required "0" AWG wire.

Then there were the computers. Kelley-WK designed 5 PCs to function as Op position 1 and 2, GOTA, Server, and Spotter. Running WriteLog made the task possible. Still, there were problems with scoring the GOTA station but out of our control (a known WriteLog bug) so we just worked around the problems--this is Field Day.

Since we were keying using the computers, the computers attached to radios were run from the 5KW Generator belonging to Ralph-KR. And that's not just any old Honda generator either. That baby has seen the toughest DX spots in the world, including Heard Island. It's nice being able to use equipment with a good pedigree.

Set-up started on Friday after lunch. Mostly computer set-up since we were expecting rough weather on Friday night. Saturday was a long morning of very hard work. 5 towers had to be erected. About 1000' of coax needed to be untangled and tested. Two verticals and an off-center fed Windom were in the plans. The 80M vertical never saw RF below 7 MHz until later in the day, but everything else was ready at 1PM.

The goal was to do some logging training and to eat prior to 1800Z. As it turns out, a logging glitch in WriteLog regarding the GOTA postponed our start to 18:12Z. Training had to be done on the fly. Ralph-KR posted the first Q.

The antennas were designed to provide both polarization diversity and space diversity. This would enable us to work both ends of the bands using any of the three stations. Modeling suggested a 53dB attenuation between the dipoles and the verticals. A portable but calibrated signal generator and spectrum analyzer was used to measure the actual path loss attenuation between the antennas, which came in at 65dB. The difference (65dB vs 53dB) is, I believe, attributable to some metal buildings positioned between the antenna sites. Approximately 450' separated the horizontal and vertical antennas.

We had a number of visitors. Most notably the head guy for the Emergency Management for our county. He was invited and arrived well before kick-off so we had some time to explain things. He was impressed and said over-and-over that the Sheriff needs to incorporate the help from hams into the emergency management plans for the county. He was introduced to ARES and provided literature to share with fellow workers.

Besides his computer prowess, Kelley-WK can cook. Kelley whipped up some freshly picked farm fresh eggs, pankakes, and sausages for Sunday morning breakfast. My vote is to make Kelley the official cook at Field Day.

Lee-WBRA was our top-scoring SSB op (but then, he got to start too, which was our best hour). He also passed some traffic to bag a few bonus points. Lee is an old Navy radio Op so traffic is second nature.

Dewey-NO was on-hand the whole period to help work the SSB station. Dewey was also instrumental in figuring out our emergency power system. Dewey got the job done.

Our hardest working guy was Mitch-KCFY. Mitch was our GOTA station manager. Other ops came and visited, even tuned around a bit on the GOTA but never worked any Qs. Mitch manned his post until fatigue overwhelmed him at 3AM or so. After and hour and a half of well deserved rest, the GOTA was perking along again. Mitch bagged 184 Qs on HF using antennas for marginal bands. Quite a task from our remote Minnesota outpost.

We tried to get Ralph-KR to bring his 190' tower and 4 element 40 M beam from home, but alas the task was a bit much for a 24 hour venture. Maybe next year? Right Ralph? Ralph had some awesome runs on 20M CW. It was great to have a seasoned op in the CW booth.

We can't forget Honey the Yellow Lab. She was instrumental in policing the area of stray potato chips, bits of chocolate chip cookies, etc. She wanted to help with the CW but simply couldn't (she has no thumb).

The CW station was an IC756PROII, the SSB station was an IC746. The GOTA was also an IC746. Using only 100W and some make-shift hardware, we managed to bag 1794 Qs. With our bonus points, the total score is 6,730. All-in-all, a very good day.

Thanks to everyone for the Qs. See you in the contests.

73

Ford -- N0FP