06/28/2006 | W5AC W5AC, The Texas A&M Amateur Radio Club conducted their field day 2006 event from the West Campus parking garage on the campus of Texas A&M University. Special thanks go out to TAMU transportation services for allowing us to use that facility.

Why a parking garage? Well, most of us don't care much for all the bugs in a "field" and need some shelter from the sun in a hot Texas June. We set up our antennas on the roof of the 6 story garage and operated two floors down. While the weather, especially on Saturday was very muggy with temperatures in the 90s and a dewpoint at 70F or above, the garage made the 24 hour operation warm, but tolerable....and without bugs! Sunday was a bit nicer thanks to a back-door cold front which pushed dewpoints down into the lower-mid 60s and high temps in the lower 90s.

Our antenna setup was comprised of a tri-band 10m-15m-20m beam, a G5RV, a 40m/80m trap dipole and a 6m halo. A fishing rod and nylon rope made for excellent antenna mounting between the light poles on the top of the garage. Plus, the design of the garage fences made for a simple means of securing poles for the beam / halo antennas.

Downstairs, we made two operating stations. One at the table seen at left with a TS-930S and FT-847 and the other in the cab of an extended cab pickup truck sporting the TS-2000 (yes, built in seats!)

We used a total of four laptops (all networked with 802.11 HSMM) running the full featured N1MM logging program. Additionally, the laptops allowed the experimentation with PSK31 and RTTY...both of which were brand new experience to our no-code Technician class operators. I think we will probably have some General/Extra class upgrades really quickly!

Although many of our members are away from the summer, several came back to College Station to participate in the event from as far away as the Dallas/Fort Worth area. Team W5AC was comprised, this year, of KE5GED, KD5OUQ, KE5GEE, KE5GHF, KD5NPM, KD5RYB, KC7YRA, KD5SYI, KG5AI, and N5PYK.

Since it was so hot and humid, many of us wished we could go sit down in the nice, air-conditioned and well equipped W5AC hamshack, but that isn't what Field Day is about.

Good eating is part of field day in that a happy crew makes for a good crew. We all feasted on an all-you-can eat Chicken tender dinner on-site complimented with unlimited Gatorade, water, and sweet iced tea from a local eating establishment.

It was a great event and W5AC was proud to participate! -- N5PYK