07/01/2007 | W4AWM This is the fifth year participating as a Class 1B operation from Virginia. Unlike last year, which was a total washout, operation this year was a complete blast. Perfect weather, lots of visitors, and the largest number of contacts ever. Unfortunately I missed WAS by 4 states, but the elusive ones just were not there. I didn't hear other stations working them, either. I had a friendly visit by a member of the local police department who took the attached pictures. He has a no code tech and unfortunately lives in an antenna restricted community. I promised to help him with a stealth antenna for HF and he is interested in getting a 2 meter base station on the air.

Otherwise, the old 1944 Onan generator kept 1.5KW worth of power flowing and burned 7.5 gallons of gas. Not too shabby for a 2 cylinder engine.

My operation this year featured 3 generations of transceivers. In the all solid state department was the Drake TR-7, hybrid was represented by an FT-101 and the Hallicrafters SR-160 did it's part as an all fire bottle rig and made great noises on 75. My operation also featured 3 antennas and 3 tuners, making easy band changes possible without a lot of retuning. In addition, there is a switching arrangement allowing any of the three rigs to connect to any of the three antennas. This is valuable since the orientation of antennas allows for directional selection. The antennas this year were a G5RV, an original Windom and an 80 meter dipole. Owing to the huge trees in our community park, the lowest antenna was at the 30 foot level. The trees were so thick that the feedlines disappeared, appearing to visitors as real skyhooks. I had many questions about that.

I am looking forward to next year already. Since I don't have a lot of time to operate during the year, I get it all out of my system on field day. Hope you had lots of fun on your outing, too

73,

John -- W4AWM