06/30/2008 | K4KQ I've read a few comments from hams saying that Field Day was more like a contest than an Emergency Preparedness Event. I like the fellowship part best, but I kind of expected it to be like a contest since I did Field Day with K4KQ The North Carolina Contest Group. I had fun at Field Day 08, we only had 40 CW contacts though, the rig I was on was a Kenwood TS-450S with no filtering at all and that made it really tough!I did get some traffic handling experience as I passed 14 formal messages including the one to the Division Section Manager for 200 bonus points altogether! Had 23 hams show up plus the ARRL Norfolk Division Section Manager Tim Slay N4IB visited and by K4RLD Bob DeWitt, District Emergency Coordinator for ARES Area Thirteen of the Western Branch of North Carolina . We had 2 stations on HF and one station on 6 meters and above. Bradley WZ4C worked south Texas off a LEO Low Earth Orbit satellite and a Hawaii station on 40 meters using a multiband vertical antenna, but we mostly used the wire antennas. A severe thunderstorm stopped operations for about 2 hours. Talk about getting field experience under adverse conditions! It hailed, hard wind gusts blew down trees to the North of us and there was a power outage, but we were on generators anyway so it didn't stop us after the rain and lightning receded and the 1000 foot loop and the 260 feet dipole hung in there. We sat in the RV and a camper and the RV I sat in rocked from the wind gusts! WZ4I Mark and Bradley WZ4C were prepared and all the equipment tables were covered with tarps and worked well. I made it til 6 AM this morning and was so tired I came home and went to bed.I'm just thankful it wasn't 95 degrees with 90% humidity! It was 70 last night after the storm that blessed us with much needed 2 inches of rain. I had a blast and look forward to next year!
Very 73 de K4KQ, or I mean KU4GW Cliff! Hi! Hi! -- KU4GW