07/27/2004 | W6ZE W6ZE, The Orange County Amateur Radio Club, held Field Day at Portola Park in Santa Ana, CA. The club had good participation, with lots of help for setup, tear-down, logging and operating.

This year's best effort goes to one of our newer members Kenan N6CCE who, with the help of some visiting ham friends, set up a great 80/10 meter operation. Their ingenuity (and some tall trees) resulted in the 80 meter antenna being up much higher than usual. During the day, with 10 meter propagation poor, they helped out the other stations, with Mike WK6O adding numerous CW contacts.

When our food chairman had to back out at the last moment, one of N6CCE's friends, Gordon KE7BIW offered to cook chili. He spent most of the day preparing a mild and delicious chili, with a separate complimentary very potent 'kicker', that allowed each person to 'heat' his chili to taste. Even those who normally don't like chili went back for seconds.

Chris KJ6ZH, longtime member and past club president, drove down from the Bay Area with his high class satellite station. After failing most of Saturday to get the elusive satellite contact, he found himself outdone when Carl, WA6BSV snagged AC6P on SO-50 on an early morning Sunday pass using a handheld antenna.

The yearly midnight Sushi and Saki party was held around nine PM (it gets earlier as some of our members get older) just as ARRL SWD Director Art W6XD, and ARRL Honorary VP Fried WA6WZO and wife Sandi WA6WZN arrived for a visit. This ritual is held in memory of longtime member Kei Yamachika W6NGO, who was a mentor, and major contributor to the club.

FD chairman Bob AF6C declared this year's Field Day a success! -- AF6C