07/26/2006 | W2GSB Town of Babylon Amateur Radio Emergency Services and the Great South Bay ARC operated as W2GSB 6F NLI, from the Babylon Town Hall's East Lawn in North Lindenhurst, NY in conjunction with Town of Babylon's Office of Emergency Management. We also had a GOTA Station, W2TOB. We had about 50 persons including representatives from a couple of the local hospitals. There was assistance from the local Boy Scouts and CERT team also. Scott Reynolds, KC2JCB also stopped by with his son and oeprated for a bit while he was visting from New hampshire. Scott was local Skywarn Team Leader and now is with the New Hamphire NWS office.

The entire event was run under rain from the setup on Saturday morning through take down on Sunday. Some of the rain events were so heavy that the local pond at Town Hall threatened to become a lake and swamp us. The ground was so saturated we had moved the cooking tent so we were not standing in ankle deep water.

When a couple of the town officials heard the next week that we had continued to operate through the weekeend they were surprised the event went as planned and was not rescheduled. Our response was "it is an emergency exercise and in an emergency you can have any type of weather, so it was a good test of our setting up equipment and operational skills."

We had quite a few operators who recently received their licenses and it was their first time at a Field Day. Bob, KC2WPH's call was issued June 26 by the FCC. We also had a couple operators come down to operate because of the sign that was placed out in front of Town Hall the 2 weeks before Field Day.

Field Day this year even though it was damp experience as far as goes the weather goes was a bright weekend for all of those that participated. My things were experienced and much knowledge was past along. -- KA2RGI