06/29/2004 | W0AA W0AA Field Day 2004 @ N0FP

What a weekend! Murphy showed his ugly face a couple of times and was summarily escorted out of town! The typical FD snafus, but great fun for certain. No big rotating aluminum antennas, just dipoles and ground plane verticals--pretty simple stuff.

Last year, the same operation was under the N0FP callsign. We decided to activate W0AA, the Minnesota Wireless Association call sign for the 2004 FD effort. We had to give the old call some use during the summer too.

Here is a birds eye view of the property. Ive noted where we placed the antennas this year for our FD effort. Actually, the 80M and 20M positions were switched this year, and the Windom was a 40M ground plane vertical.

After a spectacular failure of last years generator (see link to soapbox last year), which we ran out of oil at 17:30Z, a new power source was in order. Everything was powered from a single 10HP 5.6KW generator, which ran continuously for about 28 hours. Check out this spiffy little beauty! 12 hours of operation at power. We used about 8 gallons of fuel. Based on fuel usage and rates provided by the manufacturer, Im guessing we were burning fuel at about a 2 KW average rate during FD.

We used a pair of dipoles (40M & 20M) mounted to three temporary 46 foot tall towers made of fiberglass, fence top-rail, and rope. We oriented them in a NNE/SSW direction to give a peak response in the WNW/ESE direction from our central Minnesota location. This placed our signals right into the breadbasket of 3 and 8 land out east. At the other end of the property, about 400 feet away, we used a basic set of ground plane verticals for 80M-40M-20M. Besides the mile of feed lines, a pretty simple setup really. Logistically, thats a bunch of hardware to place in such a short period of time. The last antennas were not in place until well after the starting gun at 18:18Z.

Great weather really. It started to rain at one point Sunday morning. It was just a light drizzle. But when it did rain, the noise floor would run to about 5dB over S9 for a few minutes. The dipoles were horribly noisy during the drizzle. The ground planes did not get noisy during the rain. Then something started the static 'snapping' sound. All the stations could hear it. I wonder if the whole station was 'floating' electrically above ground. Maybe we should have grounded something. Oops

Vlad-N0STL started the show on 20M CW using the IC-756PROII. Vlads a great CW op. And he LOVES multi-op contests. Although FD is not technically a contest, we do keep score and do compare these scores to one another. What a great opportunity during the last weekend in June.

Tod-K0TO was on hand to lend us more than just his experiencewe got to use his IC-756PROII and hand crafted secret weapon. Now THIS is a footswitch! Tod worked both SSB and CW this FD. He started on 20M but we gave him an antenna with 30:1 SWR. You know you have an op when he can still make a rate into an antenna like that with about 300 of feed line! We fixed it an hour or so later.

It was difficult for me (Ford-N0FP) to focus on operating with all the stuff going on around here. As host to a great bunch of guys, things needed tending to that really only I could do. I operated mostly CW of course, but I did bust into 20M SSB towards the end of the contest and enjoyed running some great rates. Here Vlad-N0STL is observing my technique at the CW station.

Bill-AC0W took the night shift on SSB using the FT-1000D. Its tough to make rate in the middle of the night. If anybody can do it, Bill is the man for the job. Bill did a great job at digging out the Qs on 80M and 40M. We only had one 80M antenna operational this year. I was worried Bill and Vlad would be fighting over it at about 3AM local. No problems, but I think both were a bit disappointed with the situation. Something we gotta get solved for 2005.

Kelley-W0RK did a bang-up job on the logging. We used Writelog and had the whole thing networked. I counted 5 computers running. Kelley was also on hand to work the FT-1000D on SSB. He was lucky enough to work the 1700Z-1800Z hour on SSB. We did 100 Qs that hour on 20M SSB alone!

Mitch-KC0JFY used the materials from the ARRL website to pull together a nice looking display table for visitors to look at. We had some visitors. Although media was invited, and law enforcement, and the county EM (he was out-of-town on vacation this week), none showed up.

Mitch-KC0JFY was again our GOTA manager. 260 Qs on the GOTA station this year. Great job Mitch! As we stood dazed and exhausted during the tear-down of the station after Field Day I asked Mitch-KC0JFY why we do FD. His response was classic. "Because it is so darn much fun!" And fun it was. Here is Mitch at the GOTA station explaining that Honey the Yellow Lab would NOT be working the GOTA station. Honey was on hand to police the station of stray potato chips, peanuts, and to keep those darn pesky barn cats from invading the shack. She did a great job of it too.

Great food was prepared by Janey, W0RK's wife and daughter Caitlin. (Croissant sandwiches for lunch on SaturdayBeef, Ham, and Turkey; Hoagie style steak sandwiches grilled to perfection on Saturday night; farm fresh eggs, pancakes, and sausage for breakfast Sunday morning; and burgers on the grill during tear-down) The dinner bell would ring and they'd come a runnin'. I saw lots of smiles and heard plenty of laughter around the place.

We got a late start at 18:18Z due to some last minute computer software/hardware glitches with a PROII that Tod-K0TO was good enough to bring along. We fully intended to operate until 18:18Z Sunday. Shortly after 1800Z on Sunday, Kelley-W0RK was unable to continue on SSB due to the hecklers on 20M that seemed to insist that FD was over at 1800Z. Attempts to remind them of the rules only encouraged their jamming. This was too badand bad form on their part. 1700 to 1800Z was at a 100/hour rate on SSB alone. Vlad-N0STL was able to continue on CW with a good rate right up to the final gun.

All-in-all, this was a great Field Day. Its great to work with experienced people. 2,381 QSOs, plus 800 bonus points, for a total score of 8,274. Thanks to everyone for the Qs. -- N0FP