06/29/2006 | WA7LNW Field Day 2006 in southwestern Utah.

For the past several years western wild fires have kept many of us from enjoying this summertime outing due to National Forest restrictions and closures. But 2006 was a more traditional Field Day year.

I began my weekend adventure by carefully organizing all my radio equipment Friday evening. In my rush to depart my QTH on Saturday morning I promptly forgot half of what I had "organized" and so upon arriving at my Field Day site, 64 miles later, I had to regroup and shift into full Mac Gyver mode!

Luckily I had enough spare wire, connectors and tools to build what I needed to get myself on the air. My forgotten "computer to radio interface cable" meant I'd be sending FD exchanges by hand all weekend. Just like the good old days....hi!

My traditional Webster Flats site - overlooking Cedar Breaks National Monument, Utah, from the south - was too buggy this year so I settled on a new location just outside the east boundary of Cedar Breaks at an elevation of 10,253 ft. according to my GPS unit (this assumes, of course, that my crash course in reading the instruction manual on Friday night enabled me to operate the GPS unit correctly!).

Tall pines and aspen trees provided perfect support for a quickly-assembled 272 ft. horizontal wire loop antenna fed with 400 ohm feed line.

My station consisted of an Elecraft K-2 transceiver @ 5 watts with back-up KX-1 transceiver @ 4 watts. Power was provided by a 65AH 12V Optima yellow top battery. Logging software was WriteLog ver. 10.5.

I ended up consuming copious amounts of Starbucks iced "Sumatra" coffee thoughout the weekend, which helped me to stay awake and alert for a total operating time of 12 1/2 hours that resulted in 418 casual CW contacts.

As is obvious by my total operating time, in spite of the iced Sumatra I did have to take some time out to sleep. It was chilly at my elevation so I bundled up in multiple layers and then shoehorned myself into my cozy mummy-bag . . which was great except that sometime during my snooze I twisted around such that the zipper on the mummy-bag was no longer on the side but around in back!

So when I woke up not only was I still wedged tightly inside all my layers inside the mummy-bag, but I couldn't reach the zipper to get myself out . . and only the thought of how embarrassing it would be to have Search and Rescue find me that way kept me working at it until I could get to the zipper!

Further proof that Field Day is not for the faint of heart . .

But in spite of my forgotten equipment and my daring escape from the mummy-bag, Field Day is a wonderful way to escape the summer heat and enjoy one of the greatest hobbies in the world!

See everyone next year....same place and same month.

73's de Jack, WA7LNW -- WA7LNW