08/05/2006 | WC4M South Alabama Radio Club Field Day Summary - WC4M - 2006

The South Alabama Radio Club's Field Day Exercise at Frank Jackson State Park went very well this year.
Even though we recorded 102.1 degrees at the time the event started Saturday, we were able to make contacts
in 48 out of 50 states (missing only Alaska and Montana).
We logged 174 contacts and had to shut down operations for almost 4 hours due to lightning.
We logged 6 stations in Canada, 1 in the Virgin Islands, and 1 in Mexico.

We used wire dipole antennas with only trees for support on the HF bands and a 5 element "arrow shaft" beam for vhf.

We had an 1 hour radio remote Saturday (from 11:00am till noon) on WOPP Radio live from the pavilion.

Some of the visitors who came by the SARC Field Day Site this year included:

Bob Luman - EMA Director for Butler County, Alabama
H.D. Edgar, Mayor of Opp, Alabama.
Greg White - Chairman of the Covington County Commission
Anthony Clark - Sheriff of Covington County, Alabama

We had a public information table where we had the Amateur Radio Week Proclamations displayed
From Alabamas Gov. Bob Riley as well as the City Proclamations from the Mayors of Andalusia and Opp Alabama.

We had several campers at Frank Jackson State Park on Wednesday (06-21-2006) with the others
coming in that Thursday and Friday. We had (7) families who camped at the park for Field Day this year.

SARC Field Day Menu:

We had Seafood Gumbo and rice that Thursday evening.

Friday morning , we had a breakfast casserole consisting of hash brown potatoes, sausage, eggs, and cheese
cooked in a dutch oven over charcoal . We also had homemade biscuits made in another dutch oven with sawmill gravy.

Friday evening, we fried 20 lbs of fresh mullet fillets and boiled 20 lbs of shrimp with french fries and cole slaw.
Homemade vanilla ice cream and cake was dessert. We enjoyed a couple of hours of "pickin' and grinin' "after supper.

Saturday morning, we had sausage, eggs, biscuits for breakfast.

Saturday evening, we had beef brisket, grilled pork and chicken breasts, with baked beans, cole slaw, broccoli salad,
macaroni salad, and garlic bread. Homemade chocolate ice cream, homemade cookies, and several cakes.

Sunday morning, we had grilled chicken and link sausage for breakfast before breaking down the antennas and camp sites.

In summary,
I'm sure there were many Field Day stations this year that made more contacts than us but I doubt that
any group had more fun or ate as well as the South Alabama Radio Club Field Day group. -- KE4HIE