06/28/2004 | NC4LC NC4LC
Lincoln County, NC RACES / ARES Field Day 2004

Even with a rocky start with some unexpected antenna opportunities, we were able to correct and adapt those initial snafus at the 2PM kick off, and we ended up meeting and exceeding all of our Field Day goals.

From our highly visible location on the south lawn of the Lincoln County Courthouse, we ended up with over 50 names in our visitor sign-in book, fueled in part to a great story in the Lincoln Times-News, previewing the activities. We had several officials of Lincoln County government and emergency management visit our site. Our media coverage continued with the visit of a Lincoln Times-News photographer who came and took some action photos of the event in full swing. Our GOTA station allowed inactive hams and the general public to Get On The Air, you should have seen the smile on the 8 year old girl's face after she made several real contacts on HF.

According the ARRL Field Day rules, eligibility is the number 1 item, the number 2 item and object of Field Day is "to work as many station as possible on any and all amateur bands (excluding the WARC bands) and in doing so learn to operate in abnormal situations and in less optimal conditions. This year in Lincoln County, with an unofficial theme of Field Day is a contact sport, I am pleased to announce that as a 2A operation with the Bonus GOTA station, and a bonus VHF station we made over 1200 contacts on the 2 HF stations and made more than 100 contacts on our GOTA station to earn the 100 point bonus. In addition to the GOTA bonus we also demonstrated APRS, Slow Scan TV, passed NTS traffic messages and copied the ARRL CW message and earned bonus points. Now to many FD operations that might not sound like many contacts, but based on previous years efforts we had never exceeded 500 contacts before.

New for 2004 were, networked computer logging that showed real time scores and also the hourly rate of contacts, during several hours we were able to achieve rates in excess of 100 QSO's per hour. Another new idea for 2004 was scheduling operator shifts in advance, that allowed us to keep the 2HF and GOTA stations operating from the 2PM kick off on Saturday until the final gun sounded at 2PM in Sunday. After the 2PM ending, even though everyone was hot, tired and ready to relax, everyone helped with the breakdown of the stations, tents, antennas & feed lines and we were packed up and ready to leave in just over an hour.

There are too many people to thank for all their hard work, planning, organizing, and sweat in this forum, but hopefully you know who you are.

I would also like to thank all of the hams from adjacent counties that assisted us with the setup and breakdown of the operation; they also helped with the antenna installations, last minute grounding, and especially making contacts.

It was really refreshing to hear several people making plans and ideas about how to make FD 2005 an even better event, before we had even packed up this years equipment to head home. We will be meeting later this week for a critique, to hear what we did well, what we need to improve on, and what didnt work to expectations. With this input and information, I can almost assure you that next years event will be even better than 2004. -- W4GRW