06/26/2007 | W8MOP CQ FD CQ FD CQ FD DE W8MOP 4A VA, The East River ARC, Bluefield, WV.

Who invited Murphy? He was surely present at the 2007 edition of the East River Amateur Radio Club's Field Day at Boy Scout Camp Roland in Bastian, VA. The generator quit putting out juice (we had to wait on Don Anderson WD8OOR to bring two more from Bluefield), two dipoles broke, 15 Meters was just plain dead (Gary Kadar N8GK tagged only one contact on that band) and although it didn't rain, the bugs seemed bad this time around. We setup around 10am on Saturday morning and actually had an hour or so to wait until the 2pm start of FD on-the-air activities. Gary ended up working 20M, David Cox N4DBC and others worked 40M, Randall Hash WB4BBF worked 20M CW, Steven Stefancic KD8EPJ and others worked 80M. Don Anderson tried his hand at 6M SSB but the old Swan rig just wasn't up to task. Around 630pm, we had a really nice covered dish dinner at the large shelter with 45 in attendance. I think everyone got full and there was a really large choice of great food. Once the 'new' generators were in place, we took off again and got on the air around 8pm and worked until late. We got on the air again around 615am or so and continued until 11am and then shut down. Ginny Fisher KF4YBU brought us a breakfast of biscuits and homemade sausage gravy, it was great.
In the words of Bill Sowers K8WBS, "A good time was had by all".

********** The Final Stats *****
Total Claimed points: 1616
Claimed bonus points: 970
Claimed QSO points: 646
15M: 1 point
20M CW: 86 points (43 QSOs by WB4BBF)
20M SSB: 72 points
40M: 100 points
80M: 64 points
***************************************

All states were contacted except: Alaska, Hawaii, Minnesota, Nevada and Wyoming.

Camp Roland, BLAND COUNTY VIRGINIA:
37.178N 81.189W (Camp Roland)

Latitude is 37.1783 N (37 10' 42" N)
Longitude is 81.1892 W (81 11' 21" W)
Grid square: EM97je
Location is 12.3 mi (19.8 km) from SOUTH edge of grid square, 44.6 mi (71.8 km) from WEST edge of grid square.

Thanks, George "Hooger" Fisher III W4OF, ERARC Secretary, 73.

Check out a radio-active site at: http://www.erarc.com, The East River Amateur Radio Club. We'll be glad that you did! -- W4OF