06/28/2006 | W0WOB 2A KS (northwest) GOTA K0CVY
4046 points claimed 772 QSOs

FD 2006 took the Trojan ARC back to the Colby airport, which features a wonderfully quiet noise floor and convenient sun/weather awning, but isn't quite as idyllic for kids as our RFI-noisy spot at a park in town. A new feature this year was a 2nd crankup tower on an outriggered trailer which gave us a triband yagi for cw, as well as the ssb one we've used for years. Dipoles and G5RV "msytery" antenna rounded out the skyhooks.

It's always a treat to try a different rig at Field Day. The crowd favorite this time seemed to be KC0GLA's Ten Tec Jupiter. We also had IC-706 IC-735 FT-847. The propagation on 6M was disappointing after all the stories we've heard about the E-skip season thus far. However 15 was a treat in the daylight hours and 20 hung in more or less around the clock.

We picked up most of the bonus points but left sat. and nat. power on the table. Demo modes were APRS and packet. Although not usable for QSO points, our 2M WinLink gateway, courtesy of K0FJ, provided lots of fun email exchanges, some multiple, with other clubs including a group in Baja California. As much fun as that 'throwaway' mode was, we should have tried IRLP. However we didn't attempt any QSOs and nobody connected with us. Next Field Day, give us a call on node 3608 for a no-points briefing on how things are going.

The "officials" visits are pretty easy for our club. We did invite and host the city manager and club president's county commissioner brother-in-law, but the Fire Chief and Emergency Management director are club members! And our state legislature representative is club founder K0CVY. We are fortunate to have 4 new Tech members and the newbies particularly enjoyed PSK31. "Hired guns" NS0O and KC0IWH blessed us with their cw skills.

One magic thing this year was graveyard shift camaraderie. Eight of our crew were swapping lies at 2 AM, and there were still five diehards at 4 o'clock. It was just the two main station ops enjoying sunrise, though.

W0WOB personnel:

K0BJ Bruce cw run, NTS and WinLink msgs

WA0CAL John setup, provisioning

K0CVY Jim GOTA, photography

K0FJ Mike networking, computers, WinLink

K0FW Jeff cw, GOTA, provisioning

KC0GLA Nathan GOTA, networking, station mgmt

KC0HBR Jim camper, grill, power mgmt

KC0IWH Mike cw, APRS

NS0O Chet cw, entertainment

N0OXP Patti food prep

K0QP Jim setup, moral support

KC0WJT Bob GOTA, PSK, camper

KC0WMX Ryan tables, GOTA, logistics

N0XJ Gregg tower, troubleshooting, logistics

N0XNK Gary setup, GOTA, photography

KB5ZFE Kendal GOTA, ssb

We had visits/stories from KB0MBS N0QE KC0TES N0XNJ, and provisioning by K0BLU who couldn't attend.

Hope to CU in FD 2007. -- K0BJ