07/24/2006 | KC0AHN The Boeing Employees Amateur Radio Society of Wichita, Kansas had a great field day! Over 52 participants, 10 visitors, 8 youth GOTA participants with 2 additional youths who assisted were present at this years Field Day event held at the Spirit Boeing Employee Association (SBEA) Lake in Wichita, KS. Our number of QSOs and bonus points were at an all time high! Total score was 3,760 points. The things that contributed most to the event were a highly motivated GOTA team, great antennas, a visit by the local TV station, a visit by the Sedgwick County Commisioner,and some really awesome breakfasts, lunches, and barbeque dinners (thank you Don Urban KC0BVX and Mary Whitfield)!

Here are some comments from each of our station captains regarding field day!

James Whitfield, N5GUI, 10m Station Captain

10M was particularly successful for a band that was
expected to be dead at the bottom of the solar cycle.
An AR-10, half wave vertical, end-fed at 30 feet and
extending up another 16 feet was pulling in signals
well past midnight. The mast system went up, and
down, easily and quickly. The vertical omni-
directional antenna was well suited to our location in the
central US, but if the band had been REALLY open, a
directional antenna would have been needed. The rest of
the station was simple, but effective, using a twenty-
plus-year old transceiver and an equally heavy, but very
rugged, transformer-filter-regulator power supply. It did
not have all the new, modern bells and whistles, but it
worked quite well!

10m Operators included:

- Denys Fredrickson, W0BMW,
- Dexter Schnebly, KB0WYM,
- Loyd Williams, KC0HZR

Steve Canfield, KC0GAA, 15m Station Captain

The 15M station was setup by Steve and Haley Canfield
and Ron Wing. We used the FT-990 with the club's vertical
antenna (R5 I think). Terry Gattis helped Ron and I thumb
through the manual to configure the radio for Field Day
Operations. In the off-moments, Haley and I enjoyed the
paddleboats and feeding the ducks popcorn. Kay, Joey, Haley,
Drew and I went fishing and I caught a little fish. Joey
threw it back in after it flopped off the hook on the dock.

15m Operators included:

- Haley Canfield,
- Jim Enix, KC0QIE,
- Steve Schroeder, KA0YBN,
- Ron Wing, KC0MVP

Harvey Jones, AC0EG, 20m Station Captain

Transceiver was a Yaesu FT-857D running 100W on USB most of
the time. During the quieter hours of Sunday morning, ran
30W on PSK31. Antennas were a vertical (don't know the
model #) and a Hy-Gain TH-3JRS tribander at about 20 feet.
Often when contact could not be made on one antenna,
switching to the other one helped.

20m Operators included:

- Steve Heyroth, K5MNZ,
- Joey Jones,
- Alan Petre, K0LMA,
- George Pinnick, WA0GNC,
- Dave Powers, KA0KCI,
- Basil Sneeringer

Dennis Gaskill, KC0IFQ, 40m Station Captain

An ICOM 746 PRO was the radio of choice for the 40m team.
A 40m dipole oriented NW to SE at 30 feet served as our
antenna. Our operators worked CW, PSK31, and SSB contacts.

40m Operators included:

- Terry Gattis, K5VWO,
- Don Schmidt, WARZ,
- William Bennett,
- Jim Kernan, KC0WHI,
- Jimmy Williams, K5NN

John Wenner, KD8CAF, 80m Station Captain

The 80m team monitored 6m - just in case an opening
occurred - unfortunately, it never did! We had a 3
element beam hung in a tree with an unusual spider's
web suspension system... We used the clubs ICOM 756
PRO II radio. This radio had not been used by many
of the team members, so we had a few hours of
familiarization to become fully aware of its utility.
We were going to operate an 80m NVIS (near vertical
incidence) antenna, but the availability of a 40 ft
push up mast with 15 ft end masts resulted in the
highest inverted-V antenna on the site! 80m propagation
in the early morning was wonderful - providing coast-
to-coast contacts.

80m Operators included:

- Jim Enix, KC0QIE,
- John Harford, KB0OPH,
- Jay Lies, KZ0P,
- Steve Schroeder, KA0YBN

Bill Briles, W0OQC, Satellite Station Captain

We used an FT-847 with a battery charged with solar polar.
A homemade set of 2m and 70cm (circular) antennas provided
great coverage of the satellites. The GOTA team really
helped setup and tear down - thanks! Its definitely harder
to work low orbiting satellites than long elliptical orbit
satellites. We made 20 contacts through AO-07, FO-29, SO-50,
and VO-52. Next year, we will have a faster laptop computer!

Satellite Operators included:

Greg Wycoff, N0ZHE

Bill Dansereau, KC0VUI, GOTA Station Captain

The GOTA team used our Coach's ham radio - an FT-847 with a
30 ft. push-up mast and an Ameritron DX-LB+ all band antenna
configured in a north-south inverted-V arrangement. To ease
mike-fright, we setup as many as 4 headphones to the radio
and helped each other make contacts. Since our station was
the only station inside the pavillion, it was a little noiser,
so the headphones really helped. Our GOTA team was striving
for worked-all-states - we came close - 48! We made 185
contacts - with no duplicates - by using the ARRL dupe sheets.

GOTA Operators included:

- Greg Bennett, K1GWB,
- Billy Dansereau, KC0VUI,
- Rachel Enix,
- Becky Farlow,
- Logan Nispel, KC0VUH,
- Charles Rasico, KC0WQY,
- Matt Rasico, KC0VUG,
- Benjamin Wing,
- Samantha Wing, KC0MTM,
- Heather Woods, KC0WZI,
- GOTA Coach - Randy Wing, N0LD -- N0LD