07/17/2003 | K4TS Well its time to report on another superior Field Day effort exerted by the members of the Rappahannock Valley Amateur Radio Club (RVARC). It started a bit early for some of us as our group intended on making the most from the free stations both VHF/UHF and Satellite. As usual we had our bread and butter operators on 40 and 20 meters and an 80, 15 and 10 station.

The setup started late Friday as material had to be delivered to build the Satellite and VHF station as our intentions were to gain upward to 300 plus contacts on both the VHF/UHF and Satellite stations. This would add nicely to the tremendous scores, which we expected on 40 and 20 meters. We also had a PSK station set up to attempt some digital contacts on various bands. The total effort will be categorized as a 4A entry.

Friday evening the Satellite was moved from its design location to its Field Day location. This was a nightmare as my idea of throwing it on a flat bed trailer was good however; I (W4SHG) overlooked the total installed height of 14 feet and the punishment of the road on a 3.1 meter or 11 foot dish. The little bumps in the road just beat that poor dish up. Nonetheless the unit got to our Field Day location Friday evening.

The dish was a converted TVRO dish with a W0LMD designed tri-band circular patch constructed and tuned by W4SHG. The idea was to work the bird as much as possible and augment those totals with the VHF/UHF station. Friday late we set up the unit installing the feed arm and setting up the counter balances to accommodate the weight of the dish and its feed assembly.

Also delivered to aid in gaining bit of height on our VHF/UHF station was a nice donated 65 foot lift from our local NEFF Rental store. Installed in the lift was a makeshift Rohn 25 bracket crafted by W4SHG, N3KWA and W4LLK. This bracket was built to allow for the placement on at least two (2) sections of ROHN 25 tower, which would support a 6 element 6 meter W4SHG homebrew, a 13B2 Cushcraft for 2 meters and a 22 element long yagi for 70cm built by the good folks at Gulf Alpha Antennas. These on the two sections of Rohn tower were spun by a little Yaesu 550 rotor. Inside the bucket were 3 150watt brick amps for each band all feed by either LMR-400 or Andrews SuperFLex Hard Line. Serious werent we. We had to be our ground elevation was 2 feet ASL. The total height with tower and mast was 100 feet. Wow this meant we were now 102 feet above sea level.

Most was assembled Friday night and then Saturday morning the rest of the clan came rolling in. KG4RZM was in charge of tracking the bonus points and KB4XF utilized his talents in aiding the folks setting up at the GOTA station. WB4LNT a long time 20 Meter operator came in and very simply operated 20 meter CW by himself. Thats right the whole Field Day. This is a serious amateur radio operator and all in the club notice his attendance and participation as everyone looks to him and KB4XF when in need of answers. K4IA and K4GMH were our serious contesters as they set up on 40 meters and rolled off over 1000 contacts on CW and Phone. No games at this operating station.

We had a little contest between the VHF/Satellite and our 20 Meter station. I was sure that we could be competitive at the VHF and Satellite station however when all was done Mr. 20 Meters WB4LNT and single handedly beaten us in points. When I say us many folks came over to operate in the VHF/UHF and Satellite station. Even N4NW Virginia Emergency Section Coordinator showed up and pounded on 6 Meters for a bit. This was surely just an excuse to show up around suppertime. AK1E and his Wife KD4CVC came in on Sunday morning and ground out over 50 satellite contacts on AO-40. I think everyone had a good time especially those working the satellite on QRP power of 500 milliwatts to 4 watts on 1269 mhz. This is the beauty of a good feed and a large dish for AO-40. The beacon showed up and 20 over 9 when we had a reasonable squint angle under 25 degrees.

The food was terrific and K4THY and her husband W4LLK did a tremendous amount of work as did our logistics band captain Roger KG4VYJ. This fellow orchestrated a tremendous effort in getting the tents and food organized. This was crucial in having a good Field Day and he pulled it off quite nicely.

Later in the afternoon I had a chance at working W0LMD the designer of this Satellite Tri-Band patch feed. I thought it might be nice to attempt a SSTV transmission through AO-40 and did so with Robert. Nice finish to a great VHF/Satellite Field Day effort.

The HF guys grinded away just racking up the contacts. This year yielded some pretty poor conditions for HF at least on Saturday. Many of the HF operators indicated that bands were just flat. Nonetheless both of the bread and butter stations cranked out over 1500 contacts and with the satellite/vhf and PSK we ought to get close to 1800. Our VHF/UHF Satellite totals were 214. Not bad however we missed our goal of 300. It seems many Field Day locations just dont utilize anything higher than 6 meters. Contacts on 2 meters were down and virtually non-existent on 70cm.

Thanks to all the operators who aided in the RVARC effort as there are too many to list. I was very impressed with the quantity of folks who stayed and helped tear down. It was close to 100 degrees with very high humidity on Sunday afternoon. We will perform better on the higher bands next year. We look forward to it, as we will have a bigger larger higher VHF/UHF station. Who knows we might even do some microwave next year.

Even though the VHF/UHF and Satellite station lost, just barely to Mr. 20 Meter CW this year, he should take note that we will be gunning for him next year. We will prevail in 2004.

Respectfully submitted for the Rappahannock Valley Amateur Radio Club -- W4SHG