06/25/2007 | W5AC W5AC, The Texas A&M Amateur Radio Club conducted their field day 2007 event from the West Campus parking garage on the campus of Texas A&M University. Special thanks go out to TAMU transportation services for allowing us to use that facility.

Why a parking garage? Well, most of us don't care much for all the bugs in a "field" and need some shelter from the sun in a hot Texas June. We set up our antennas on the roof of the 6 story garage and operated one floor down. While the weather was warm it was overcast most of the day with a nice breeze. We did get a shower on Saturday afternoon, but we were a floor down, nice and dry.

Our antenna setup was comprised of a tri-band 10m-15m-20m beam, a 20m/40m dipole, and a 40m/80m trap dipole. We had the local RACES repeater/tower trailer thanks to W5DZ and KZ5M. The crank up tower made quick work of mounting the beam and hoisting the dipole centers.

Downstairs, we made two operating stations. At the table we had a Kenwood TS-940S to run voice, and a Kenwood TS-2000 to run CW and digital. You might also remember the W5AC banner!

We used two laptops running the full featured N1MM logging program. Additionally, the laptops allowed the experimentation with PSK31 and RTTY. As foretold in last years soapbox, KD5OUQ and KE5GED are now both General class operators. I think we'll have some Extra class operators by next year.

Although many of our members are away from the summer, several came back to College Station to participate in the event from as far away as the Austin area. Team W5AC was comprised, this year, of KE5GED, KD5OUQ, KE5ISM, NT5TU, KG5AI, KZ5M, N5TLT, and N5PYK.

Good eating is part of field day in that a happy crew makes for a good crew. We all feasted on an all-you-can eat BBQ brisket dinner on-site complimented with potato salad, donuts, cookies, chips, unlimited Gatorade, water, and sodas thanks to KD5OUQ and his family.

It was a great event and W5AC was proud to participate! -- KE5GED