07/01/2008 | W0OAR We held the annual Field Day at the Historical, Adamson log cabin in Lawrence County MO. What a site this is! It has all the amenities of the early 1900's, no running water, no power and no indoor plumbing.
We ran 2 Alpha with a gas generator. The generator was the only mistake we made this year. We should have ran batteries due to the noise and the fact that the cost was around $4.00 per hour to run. With any luck we will be running solar power next year.

We decided that it would be fun to go into field day with no I repeat NO antennas of any kind. Everyone was to show up with odds and ends from there shack and see what would become of the day. This was to be a teaching day for the old and new hams alike. Talk about fun.
We had some Plexiglas, SO239's, butane soldering iron and a spool of 14 gauge stranded wire w/insulation. Amazingly no one brought a calculator. So even the math went back in time, back to pencil and paper. Some even resorted to doing the figures on the palm of their hand. In a short time we had a 20 meter and 40 meter dipole built and ready to put on the air. There was only one problem! We had a thunderstorm that was creating havoc at this time. Leave it to the older hams to say, what problem? This cabin is around 50 feet long with a covered porch on the front an one in the back. We had over 10 feet of head room. So, at the request of the older hams the new hams proceeded to install the 20 meter dipole up in the roof area of the porch and then installed the 40 meter dipole on the back porch. After running some feed line to the Yaesu 101ZD and the Kenwood 520S, a few finial adjustment to the antennas and WAR was on the air and right on schedule. Due to the fact that the antennas were so low to the ground we were limited to short range contacts, but with in a couple of hours the weather broke and we were able to move the antennas to a better location. With a wrench and string we were able to launch the dipoles into the trees about 30 to 40 feet HF came to life. Within the next 20 hours we would work all the states including Alaska and Hawaii between 20 and 40 meters as well as some foreign contacts. The final count was 310 contacts for 20 and 40 meters combined. Who says you have to have steel and aluminum in the air. Copper works just fine and its allot easier to move around.
Hearing SSB and the sound of CW in the air for 24 hours I really don't know what else you could ask for. Well, ok yes the BBQ is a big plus. Good Food, Good Friends and Great contacts, I couldn't imagine a better way to spend a weekend.

With over 30 hams from age 15 to 80 and future hams ages 6 months to 30 years in attendance of this years field day, we can honestly say that the future of ham radio is in good shape for Lawrence County MO.

Plans are already in the making for next years field day. We are planning to run 4 alpha 10, 20, 40 and 80 meters, maybe a QRP station for CW as well as running 6 meters. We will think about using batteries and solar for charging next year.
We hope to hear you on the air.

73, WAR -- KB0RGW