07/28/2003 | WA7PRC I've operated FD a number of times over the years. This time was again with my long-time friend Evan Green (N7MCG). What made it different was that Evan brought four of his Boy Scouts, David Brinker, Aaron Weiss, Matt Bloom, and Matt Tierney. All four Scouts proved to be very hard working, and quick learners. Our location was Cape Lookout State Park, near Netarts, OR (on the Pacific coast).

Once again, Old Man Murphy was doing his worst... before I made the 275 mile trek. A coworker of mine, Gordon Wood (KD4SYX) whipped together a couple of regulated switching power supplies... one to ensure a steady 14V @ 20A to the rig, and a 16V @ 4.5A unit to operate Evan's laptop PC. The laptop switcher worked when I shipped it to Evan but when he tried it Thursday evening, it didn't work... the switching FET had broken its leads. I was able to find a reasonable replacement in my junk box but didn't know if it was any good... and was 200 miles away from trying it! Thankfully, when I arrived the following afternoon, it worked! The big switcher worked flawlessly... maybe material for a QST or handbook article?

Next, I nearly forgot to bring the anchor stakes for the homebrew 40' tilt-up mast. Thankfully, I remembered before driving too far.

Then, Murphy tried to keep us in the dark -- Evan's battery for the lights in his tent trailer was dry (and dead). It took 20 oz of water in EACH cell. We could only hope that charging it as we drove to the coast would bring it up. It did, just barely.

Upon arrival at Cape Lookout State Park, we were then told that our site was a drain field (for runoff water) and we were not to drive anything into the ground there. Oy! Thank goodness for bringing along a 600' spool of rope... we used ALL of it! The Cushcraft A3S we used was brand-new, and performed flawlessly. But, because we had to assemble it from scratch, and because of the constraints on placement of the mast's guy anchors, we decided to begin setup prior to 1800Z. I dunno why but, that seemed to take a LOT longer than in previous years. We weren't on the air 'til nearly 2230!

The scouts made most of the contacts, trading operating and logging duties while Evan & I supervised. Though none had ANY operating time prior to this event, they each did remarkebly well. When their ears were fried from the din, Evan would take a turn... he had a couple of good streaks where the 'Q-meter' would go up sharply. Then, I'd bang out a few Qs on CW. Though I'm mighty rusty, I still managed to grab a few to punch the score up a bit.

As it turned out, though Murphy was definitely in our camp, Mother Nature finally did us in. The Oregon coast can be pretty windy. It was pretty breezy overnight and didn't let up in the morning. We were advised that a weather system was coming in (and it looked like it). So, rather than break camp in a rainstorm, we decided to knock off early (1640Z).

My plans for the next FD include:

1) Bigger site, 2) Taller mast (60' should help the 80/40m inverted vees), and 3) MORE CW operation

To see all the photos of our operation, please go to http://www.geocities.com/bswadener/fd2003/

Vy 73,
Bryan Swadener -- WA7PRC